From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 1 02:58:20 1994
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Subject: Config Question...
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com (list managers)
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 20:58:36 -0600 (CST)
From: "Lance W. Bledsoe"
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Can anyone tell me how to config my majordomo list so that the address
of the "list" is in the *reply* line, and not the sender of the
message?
Thanks much,
Lance Bledsoe
lwb@cs.utexas.edu
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 1 03:23:32 1994
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From: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal)
Subject: the vultures have landed
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com (The List-Managers Mailing List)
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 18:27:00 +6600 (CST)
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I just started up a mailing list to discuss the music of singer/songwriter
John Hiatt. Just today, I received an email message from a music
publisher implying all sorts of grave and rude threats to me if there
are any copyright violations on the list. (Which, by coincidence, I
addressed to the list readers just the other day.)
I'm wondering if there is a flock of vultures out there, watching us, and
waiting to swoop down as was done to me. Or am I the lucky one?
Please note this is NOT a question about copyright law. (Nor do I
want to engage in a discussion of legal culpability. That's a thread
that would generate reams of discussion from people wholly unqualified
to answer.) This is a question of common courtesy. I don't appreciate
formal and threatening messages in the total absence of any wrongdoing.
--
Chip Rosenthal 512-447-0577 | I figure the odds be fifty-fifty
Unicom Systems Development | I just might have some thing to say.
| -FZ
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 1 04:16:07 1994
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From: rnovak@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Robert Novak)
Message-Id: <9404010414.AA20113@nyx10.cs.du.edu>
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Subject: Re: the vultures have landed
To: chip@chinacat.unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal)
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 21:14:08 -0700 (MST)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: from "Chip Rosenthal" at Mar 31, 94 06:27:00 pm
Reply-To: rnovak@nyx.cs.du.edu
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"Chip Rosenthal" says something like:
>
> I just started up a mailing list to discuss the music of singer/songwriter
> John Hiatt. Just today, I received an email message from a music
> publisher implying all sorts of grave and rude threats to me if there
> are any copyright violations on the list. (Which, by coincidence, I
> addressed to the list readers just the other day.)
>
> I'm wondering if there is a flock of vultures out there, watching us, and
> waiting to swoop down as was done to me. Or am I the lucky one?
Hmmm... I've never had such a threat even with several musical lists at
my fingertips. This sort of a post, from what you've said about it, may
be founded from the publisher's perspective. There's no reason to be
rude, unless you posted something along the lines of "everybody violate
as many of Hiatt's publisher's copyrights as you can as often as you
can," which I'll guess you didn't.
Just don't tell them that FTP exists :-) One thing you might do is have
your list members express displeasure politely to the publisher, or just
do so yourself and mention that a lot of Hiatt fans or potential Hiatt
fans may have their image of the performer tainted by this publisher's
comments and the aftermath.
Good luck.... don't let it bug you too much.
Robert
--
Robert Novak (rnovak@nyx.cs.du.edu) . Manager: tiffany, perfect-beat, slade,
"You get elaborate with your lies, . tiger, galaxy, gpdg, galaxy variants
Computer dreams slip through your . GM: galaxy, g/2, galactica, blind
eyes / Baby you like to be the king of paradise / So sweet and ruthless." -TD
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 1 23:16:06 1994
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Reply-To and IRIX
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 94 18:16:12 -0500
From: Mitch Collinsworth
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Gang, I'm curious if anyone else has encountered this curious behavior
with IRIX. I do not have an SGI system at my disposal for testing
and the situation seems so bizarre that I find it hard to believe.
I recently had an issue of the digest version of one of my lists
bounced back from an SGI system because the user had messed up the
protections on his mailbox so that sendmail couldn't write to it.
Normally no big deal, he just misses an issue of the digest, right?
Well in this case his sendmail bounced the digest to the Reply-To:
address instead of (or possibly in addition) the Errors-To: or
Return-Path: address. Errors-To: and Return-Path: both point to the
list manager, Reply-To: points to the list posting address! So of
course the bounced digest went straight back out to everyone on the
non-digest version of the list, and into the beginning of the next
issue of the digest. (Fortunately the next digest was small enough
that the combined size of the two digests was smaller than the trigger
size that causes the digest program to immediately send out a new issue
instead of waiting for the next cron run. If it had been bigger a mail
loop of repeating digests would have ensued!) Of course as soon as I
realized what had happened I dropped the subscriber and requested that
he either fix his sendmail or subscribe from a different system,
*without* a .forward back to the offending system!
In all the time I've been running my lists this is the first time I
have seen a sendmail do something this stupid. (Not to say I haven't
seen stupid, only that the others pale by comparison.) The system's
login banner says:
IRIX System V.3 (stereosgi)
... and the subscriber claims it's running out-of-the-box sendmail with
the only config changes being to define the domain and forwarder
addresses. He also claims to have run some tests and verified that his
system sends bounces to both the Reply-To: and Errors-To: addresses.
Since I don't know IRIX, I have no idea how recent/ancient this version
is, but I am truly amazed that a vendor would ship a sendmail with this
behavior. Can anyone confirm or deny this as out-of-the-box behavior?
-Mitch
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 2 01:23:18 1994
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Date: Fri, 1 Apr 94 17:19 PST
From: rogerk@queernet.org (Roger B.A. Klorese)
To: mkc@graphics.cornell.edu
Subject: Re: Reply-To and IRIX
In-Reply-To: <9404012316.AA08168@skigo.graphics.cornell.edu>
Organization: QueerNet
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
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In article <9404012316.AA08168@skigo.graphics.cornell.edu> you write:
>Well in this case his sendmail bounced the digest to the Reply-To:
>address instead of (or possibly in addition) the Errors-To: or
>Return-Path: address.
Actually, it should send the error to the envelope From_ address;
what's that set to?
--
ROGER B.A. KLORESE rogerk@QueerNet.ORG
2215-R Market Street #576 San Francisco, CA 94114 +1 415 ALL-ARFF
"There is only one real blasphemy: the refusal of joy." -- Paul Rudnick
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 4 15:04:18 1994
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To: rogerk@queernet.org (Roger B.A. Klorese)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Reply-To and IRIX
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 01 Apr 94 17:19:00 PST."
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 94 11:03:08 -0400
From: Mitch Collinsworth
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>>Well in this case his sendmail bounced the digest to the Reply-To:
>>address instead of (or possibly in addition) the Errors-To: or
>>Return-Path: address.
>
>Actually, it should send the error to the envelope From_ address;
>what's that set to?
Agreed. It's set the same as Errors-To: - to the list manager. The
question isn't really about that, though. It's about the bounce to
the Reply-To: address.
-Mitch
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 19:31:39 1994
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Date: Tue, 05 Apr 1994 15:29:35 EDT
From: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Message-ID: <0097C821.0C986920.20120@cvi.hahnemann.edu>
Subject: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
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With all the brouhaha about AOL a while
back, and the rather cavalier attitude some people
had towards AOL's ability to do anything, I forward
to the list the following tidbit from USENET, posted
in news.admin.policy,news.admin, and alt.internet.
If this has come up on ListManagers, sorry. (I get the
digest, not the immediate list.) If not, uh, enjoy. :-/
================================begin
From: dtynan@philby.ilo.dec.com (Dermot Tynan)
Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.admin,alt.internet
Subject: AOL Hassles (let the flame-wars begin)...
Date: 5 Apr 1994 17:09:32 GMT
Organization: Claddagh Films Limited
Lines: 60
Message-ID: <2ns60c$5kb@decuk.uvo.dec.com>
OK, so this probably isn't the place to post this, so feel free to
cross-post it (and any replies) elsewhere. I'd also appreciate a
quick mail message from someone saying they've seen this posting
because I'm not convinced the NNTP stuff is working. Anyway...
Scott Dorsey (of Filmmakers Mailing List fame) has just been slimed big
time by America Online (AOL). He wrote to them to ask that they
educate their users better on how to subscribe to mailing lists, and
Netiquette in general. He was receiving tons of SUBSCRIBE requests to
the mailing list, by people who had no clue what it was or why they
should be interested in it. Usually, after a day or two, the
subscribers would then ask to be dropped, again mailing directly to the
list instead of to the admin address. Most had never seen the standard
net documents and were completely ignorant concerning protocol or
etiquette.
AOL wrote to Scotts' senior management and spuriously claimed he was
forging AOL mail and using Government equipment for non-Government
purposes. He has now been told to shut down the mailing list. As one
of the original creators of the mailing list, I have come to depend on
it as an invaluable resource for independent film making. Now, it has
been yanked by an organization which seems to have no respect for
net.tradition. I am disheartened to see such a proliferation of
organizations such as AOL which take advantage of the facilities
provided by the net at large, charge money to their subscribers for
using such facilities, and then in the face of all that, create trouble
and work for people volunteering their time and efforts to keep the
whole system afloat.
I for one have had enough. I intend to write to AOL and complain
vehemently. I also intend to educate their users concerning the
atrocities committed in their name. This cannot go on. This is not a
playground for juveniles or their incompetent administrators. The net,
after all, is anarchistic in nature. If enough people are annoyed at
the shoddy (or shady) business practices of one organization, we should
be able to do something about it. I appeal to other people, in similar
circumstances to come forward, and to send mail to AOL denouncing that
organizations stance, and imploring them to take immediate action. I
would also like to hear of possible remedies for renegade outfits such
as AOL.
I'm sorry if this rankles those of you who connect via AOL, but you
should be aware of what your hard-earned dollars are supporting. The
apparent reputation of people who use AOL for subscribing is that they
are ill-informed kids, given to flaming and hacking. This, I'm
convinced is due to poor system administration policies on behalf of
AOL. A little educating can go a long way toward alleviating
net traffic, and saving the electronic reputations of the countless
numbers of people who use the facilities knowledgeably and without
creating a ruckus. Whether or not you're an AOL user, I would ask that
you write a stern letter to AOL management decrying their recent
tactics, and asking that they take more positive steps towards
educating their users. Vote please, with your checkbooks, and support
an on-line facility with a better corporate culture.
- Der
--
Dermot Tynan, dtynan@philby.ilo.dec.com
Filmmaking: The art of creation
in the face of adversity.
================================end
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 19:58:44 1994
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From: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 15:58:14 EDT
In-Reply-To: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
"AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)" (Apr 5, 3:29pm)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
To: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
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> AOL wrote to Scotts' senior management and spuriously claimed he was
> forging AOL mail and using Government equipment for non-Government
> purposes.
I guess I'd have to know more about what the above sentence means
before I could pass judgement on this case. On the surface, it
doesn't sound like behavior likely to get you a good reception from
senior management types. Perhaps if we could see the message Scott
sent to AOL, we could judge the appropriateness of the response.
--Mike
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 20:21:58 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 16:21:36 -0400
From: Dave Sill
Message-Id: <199404052021.QAA03456@de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV>
To: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Cc: "Anthony J. Rzepela" ,
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
In-Reply-To: <199404051958.PAA11102@z.nsf.gov>
References:
<199404051958.PAA11102@z.nsf.gov>
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>> AOL wrote to Scotts' senior management and spuriously claimed he was
>> forging AOL mail and using Government equipment for non-Government
>> purposes.
>
>I guess I'd have to know more about what the above sentence means
>before I could pass judgement on this case. On the surface, it
>doesn't sound like behavior likely to get you a good reception from
>senior management types. Perhaps if we could see the message Scott
>sent to AOL, we could judge the appropriateness of the response.
We'd also need to know where Scott works and what their mission is
before we could determine whether or not the film-makers list was
appropriate for his site.
It sure would be cheesy of someone to question the appropriateness of
a particular list on a Government system merely because the list
manager challenged them to do a better job, *but* we
Gov't-equipment-using people need to be sure to use that equipment for
the purposes it was funded to accomplish.
--
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) I dream of a televisionland where it will be
Martin Marietta Energy Systems as hard for a network to expose us to violence
Workstation Support as it is for me to tell someone they have
spinach on their teeth. --Paula Poundstone
URL http://www.dec.com/pub/DEC/DECinfo/html/dsill.html
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 20:41:22 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 16:31:23 EDT
From: morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan)
Message-Id: <9404052031.AA01092@s.ecc.engr.uky.edu>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle
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Anthony J. Rzepela reposts:
>From: dtynan@philby.ilo.dec.com (Dermot Tynan)
>Newsgroups: news.admin.policy,news.admin,alt.internet
>Subject: AOL Hassles (let the flame-wars begin)...
>
>[...]
>Scott Dorsey (of Filmmakers Mailing List fame) has just been slimed big
>time by America Online (AOL). He wrote to them to ask that they
>educate their users better on how to subscribe to mailing lists, and
>Netiquette in general.
>
>AOL wrote to Scotts' senior management and spuriously claimed he was
>forging AOL mail and using Government equipment for non-Government
>purposes.
>[...remainder deleted...]
For starters, we don't know that "AOL management" did this. I've been
told (too many times) that "some official at booga.com says," only to
find that it's some hacked-off *user* at booga.com. Let's not pull out
the tar and feathers until we know "what's what."
I will say that, if AOL management is indeed responsible, there is NO
excuse for such behavior.
>He has now been told to shut down the mailing list.
Couldn't we rephrase this problem as "why did the host site take such
drastic action after *one* complaint?"
I'm not defending AOL - I'm simply saying that we should not allow our
concern with the flood of AOL newbies to lead us into assumptions that
may be erroneous. I, for one, have contacted AOL management and asked
them, point-blank, if this is an accurate report of the situation. If
it is, I'll join you in discussing the reaction we should take as list
owners.
--Wes
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 21:40:29 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 14:35:08 PDT
From: Teshager.Tesfaye@Eng.Sun.COM (T2)
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: is the following possible
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Could majordomo be setup as follows in such a way that
a the command "who list" for members of a closed list
is suppressed?
Thanks.
-T2
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 22:07:50 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 17:45:28 -0400
From: todd%toolz.UUCP@mathcs.emory.edu (Todd Merriman)
Message-Id: <9404052145.AA24936@toolz>
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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>With all the brouhaha about AOL a while
>back...
It you think the AOL situation with mailing lists is bad,
just wait til the AOL subscribers start posting News!
That's right, AOL is introducing Usenet News within a few
weeks, according to a letter from the AOL president to
the subscribers (I am one).
| Todd Merriman - Software Toolz, Inc. +1 404 889 8264 / Maintainer of the
| 8030 Pooles Mill Dr., Ball Ground, GA 30107 / Software Entrepreneur's
| todd@toolz.atl.ga.us / Mailing List
Work flows toward the competent until they are submerged
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 22:07:58 1994
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: is the following possible
In-reply-to: A message of "Tue, 05 Apr 1994 14:35:08 PDT."
<9404052135.AA18190@cleo.Eng.Sun.COM>
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Date: Tue, 05 Apr 1994 18:07:39 -0400
From: Paul Graham
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i was interested in this myself so i added ``anon'' to the list types.
perhaps something like this could be added to the standard distribution.
-------- T2 writes:
Could majordomo be setup as follows in such a way that
a the command "who list" for members of a closed list
is suppressed?
-------------------
--
paul
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 22:39:27 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 18:39:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
To: Todd Merriman
Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9404052145.AA24936@toolz>
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> >With all the brouhaha about AOL a while
> >back...
>
> It you think the AOL situation with mailing lists is bad,
> just wait til the AOL subscribers start posting News!
> That's right, AOL is introducing Usenet News within a few
> weeks, according to a letter from the AOL president to
> the subscribers (I am one).
>
Sorry to bring up a subject you may have already talked out, but I am new
to the list and am wondering about the comments about AOL and mailing
lists. I did check in there, and noticed one of my lists is mentioned.
I've had some new subscribers as a result, but it hasn't been a problem
(so far). I posted this one on the 'new lists' list, so I was already out
there. There's some other lists I have though, that could have a problem
with that much publicity.
If this list has already had enough talk on the topic, private posts to
me would be apprecaited. Thanks.
-Sharon
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 22:57:47 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 17:25 EDT
Message-ID: <9404051725.AA05986@summit.novell.com>
From: mingus@summit.novell.com (Marcel-Franck Simon)
To: rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu ("Anthony J. Rzepela"),
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Received: from summit by summit.novell.com; Tue, 5 Apr 94 17:25 EDT
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
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My experience with AOL, their users and my mailing list has been thus:
- Received a flood of subscribe requests by people who were completely ignorant
of the list's subscribe protocol.
- Contacted postmaster@aol.com and asked that s/he rectify the situation
- Received no answer over a period of a couple months
- Got annoyed
- List-Managers list went through a what-to-do-about-clueless-AOL-subscribers
discussion, during which I relayed the above
- Heard comments from people who *had* gotten response from postmaster@aol.com
- Wrote postmaster@aol.com again
- Received a *very* cooperative response within one day, explaining that
things were just getting setup to deal with problems like mine, and saying
that my mail had been forwarded to listmaster@aol.com
- Received an *equally* cooperative response from the listmaster within 1-2
days after that. Sent this person a couple messages explaining the process
I wanted their subscribers to follow
- Haven't had a problem with AOL people subscribing to my list, since. Several
of them have turned out to be excellent contributors.
I conclude that the problem was one of ignorance compounded by miscommunication.
AOL deserves responsibility for rushing their people onto the Internet without
teaching them the rules of the road, so to speak; but IMO they are doing the
right thing to correct the situation.
This message does not jibe at all with my own situation, and I'd want to
hear a lot more details, including AOL's version of the story, before
blasting away at them. Remember, AOL makes money by (a) getting more
subscribers and (b) these subscribers being connected for good long periods
of time. I would think they would *want* their people to subscribe to
as many lists as possible, increasing the fees they pay AOL....
Marcel
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 23:01:49 1994
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To: Teshager.Tesfaye@Eng.Sun.COM (T2)
cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: is the following possible
In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 5 Apr 94 14:35:08 PDT
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 1994 16:01:42 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
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Teshager.Tesfaye@Eng.Sun.COM (T2) writes:
#
# Could majordomo be setup as follows in such a way that
# a the command "who list" for members of a closed list
# is suppressed?
#
# Thanks.
# -T2
First, questions about specific mailing list packages should be
referred to the support lists for those packages (in the case of
Majordomo, that's Majordomo-Users@GreatCircle.COM), not to the the
List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM mailing list. List-Managers is for more
general discussions of policy, procedure, experiences, and so forth.
To answer your question: yes, sort of. In the current release of
Majordomo, if you mark the list "private", then only members of the
list can see who else is on the list. In the next release (which is
about to go out for beta test), you'll be able to turn this off
entirely (but beware that it's usually pretty easy to get the same
info from Sendmail).
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 23:19:39 1994
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
In-reply-to: Your message of Tue, 5 Apr 1994 15:58:14 EDT
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 1994 16:19:29 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse) writes:
#
# > AOL wrote to Scotts' senior management and spuriously claimed he was
# > forging AOL mail and using Government equipment for non-Government
# > purposes.
#
# I guess I'd have to know more about what the above sentence means
# before I could pass judgement on this case. On the surface, it
# doesn't sound like behavior likely to get you a good reception from
# senior management types. Perhaps if we could see the message Scott
# sent to AOL, we could judge the appropriateness of the response.
There's another consideration here: just because a machine has a .GOV
address, don't assume it's a government machine. The machines at
GreatCircle.COM, for instance, are also known as CAP.GOV (Civil Air
Patrol). They are most definitely MY machines, though; I bought them,
I own them, I've never received a dime from the government for the
CAP.GOV stuff (it's part of the volunteer work that I do with CAP),
and they don't have ANY say in what "appropriate use" of these
machines is.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 23:47:12 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 19:42:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Casti
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
To: Todd Merriman
Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9404052145.AA24936@toolz>
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> It you think the AOL situation with mailing lists is bad,
> just wait til the AOL subscribers start posting News!
^^^^^
> That's right, AOL is introducing Usenet News within a few
> weeks, according to a letter from the AOL president to
> the subscribers (I am one).
Start? It's been available for at least three weeks. Use the keyword
"internet" or "newsgroups".
David.
From list-managers-owner Tue Apr 5 17:03:43 1994
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Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 19:41:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Casti
Subject: Re: is the following possible
To: T2
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9404052135.AA18190@cleo.Eng.Sun.COM>
Message-Id:
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On Tue, 5 Apr 1994, T2 wrote:
> Could majordomo be setup as follows in such a way that
> a the command "who list" for members of a closed list
> is suppressed?
Sure; just change the command in the perl script and change the info
message to tell people who isn't available.
David.
From list-managers-owner Wed Apr 6 12:40:37 1994
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Date: Wed, 6 Apr 94 8:40:32 EDT
From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
Organization: Electric Armts Div, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ
Message-ID: <9404060840.aa13768@fsm-1.pica.army.mil>
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todd@toolz.atl.ga.us wrote:
>>With all the brouhaha about AOL a while
>>back...
>
>It you think the AOL situation with mailing lists is bad,
>just wait til the AOL subscribers start posting News!
>That's right, AOL is introducing Usenet News within a few
>weeks, according to a letter from the AOL president to
>the subscribers (I am one).
Hmmm. They've already been doing so for a month now.
WRT the original post, I find it quite unlikely that the sysadmins at AOL
did as described. I sent a note off to postmaster enquiring about the way
they handle mailing lists there, since I'd been getting a whole bunch of
subscribes followed 3 days later by corresponding unsubscribes. PM forwarded
my note to a person whose job it is to maintain a database of internet
mailing lists for users on AOL. That person solicited me for up-to-date
descriptions of my mailing lists, sub/unsub procedures, etc. Not the story
I've seen presented here at all...
Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer
From list-managers-owner Wed Apr 6 14:02:30 1994
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From: jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait)
Message-Id: <199404061402.KAA01869@intercon.com>
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
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Isn't the AOL List manager on this list?
If not, did anyone keep the posting he made a while ago saying 'Talk to
me if you have problems'?
JB
From list-managers-owner Wed Apr 6 14:22:15 1994
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Date: Wed, 06 Apr 1994 10:20:08 EDT
From: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Message-ID: <0097C8BE.FC0D98C0.20259@cvi.hahnemann.edu>
Subject: Gee, why are LM's tired of AOLers?
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I'm forwarding a copy of email I got from someone
at AOL calling himself a "System Administrator".
The message refers to me in the third person, and seems
to be addressed to the List Managers list as a whole,
so I really don't think this is a matter of forwarding
private email.
I hope someone besides me appreciates the irony of an
AOL sys admin who doesn't now how to get a reply to
a list message to the appropriate place, and the methodology
described in the following letter used to finger the "culprit".
My own comment? If I'm EVER a defendant in a criminal
case, I want all AOL people excluded.
=====================================begin
From: MX%"pmdatropos@aol.com" 5-APR-1994 17:01:32.58
Subj: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (...
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From: pmdatropos@aol.com
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Sender: "pmdatropos"
Message-ID: <9404051631.tn443803@aol.com>
To: rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 94 16:31:49 EDT
Subject: Re: AOL flexing some muscle (...
"Anthony J. Rzepela" forwarded some mail
regarding action taken against Scott Dorsey.
Since I was involved in the situation, I feel it's only appropriate that the
*other side* of the story be told.
A few weeks ago, I received a bounced e-mail informing me that a news article
I allegedly posted to several newsgroups was being returned as a result of
bad headers. Since I had never written any such article, I was obviously
surprised (and concerned).
After examining the headers of the article, we determined a list of sites
from which the forgery could conceivably have come. We attempted to contact
all of the postmasters at those sites and ascertain what had, indeed,
happened. Mr Dorsey was one of the respondants. Postmasters at the other
sites responded in such a fashion that we were reasonably certain the forgery
had not arisen from their machines. This left only Mr Dorsey's machine, in
the NASA domain. Mind you, up til this point I had no idea who Mr Dorsey was;
claims that any action taken against him were motivated by corporate or
personal vendetta are simply false.
Our next step involved contacting the postmaster at the NASA machine (and
cc:ing their admin. contact) and alerting them to the possibility that the
integrity of their machine had been compromised. Again, at NO TIME was there
an effort to target Mr. Dorsey, or to allege that he was the source of the
forgery. As far as I am concerned, there has never been any hard evidence
that he was the cause -- however, it *did* appear that the most likely path
of propagation was from Mr. Dorsey's computer.
We recently received mail from NASA indicating that in their opinion the case
was closed and that they would whatever action, if any, they deemed
appropriate.
To date, I have received several pieces of private e-mail regarding the
USENET article which I allegedly wrote; in each case I have asked the sender
to identify the place where the article appeared (only one has responded). I
repeat that this article did *not* originate from me or my computer.
Although the letter forwarded by Mr Rzepela leaves me upset, I can and do
understand the underlying reason for it. I cannot emphasize enough that there
has never been any intent to cause harm to Mr. Dorsey. If action was taken
against him by NASA, I can only conclude that they deemed it appropriate.
Regards,
David B. O'Donnell (PMDAtropos@aol.com)
System Administrator, America Online, Inc.
==========================================================end
From list-managers-owner Wed Apr 6 14:34:26 1994
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From: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 10:33:16 EDT
In-Reply-To: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
"AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)" (Apr 5, 3:29pm)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Where bounces go to
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Am I correct in my understanding that mailers should be sending
bounces to the From address from the envelope (or to be more precise,
the address specified in the MAIL FROM: line in the SMTP interchange)?
Am I also correct in my understanding that this address is the one
displayed on most Unix sendmail-based systems in the "From"
line that delimits mail messages?
Assuming I'm correct, I am considering not allowing folks to
subscribe to my lists if their mailer doesn't send errors back to
the correct address. (I have little tolerance for bounces.) I would
just build up, manually, a list of host names that don't follow the
spec. If someone with one of the hostnames tried to subscribe, they'd
get back a message saying something like, "I know it's probably not
your fault, but we don't allow non-RFC compliant mailers to use our
lists. Please have your postmaster contact ______ when it's fixed,
blah, blah, blah."
Questions: Has anyone taken this extreme step? What are the possible
reprecussions.
--Mike
From list-managers-owner Wed Apr 6 15:01:10 1994
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To: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Where bounces go to
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 06 Apr 94 10:33:16 EDT."
<199404061433.KAA11798@z.nsf.gov>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 94 11:00:58 -0400
From: Mitch Collinsworth
X-Mts: smtp
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My reading of the RFCs agrees with yours and yes, in response to the
situation I outlined last week with the SGI machine sending bounces to
the Reply-To: address, I have taken just the "extreme" step you suggest.
This is the 2nd time I've had to bounce someone. In both cases my stated
position is that I have only one requirement for people who subscribe to
my lists and that is that their mailbox reside on a system that conforms
to the accepted internet standards. If it does not and puts the list at
risk, you're out. Find your system or get a mailbox on a different one.
(Note that if the person resubscribes with another address, you still
gotta check that he hasn't .forward-ed mail from there back to the
offending system.) In last week's incident the user put up a lengthy
argument, which only ceased when I trotted out the RFCs and pointed him
to specific sections. At that point he found a new mailbox AND went after
SGI customer support to find out how to fix his sendmail.
I too wondered about possible repercussions, but I decided I could safely
stand on the RFCs if someone ever tried to get nasty about it.
-Mitch
From list-managers-owner Wed Apr 6 17:59:21 1994
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From: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 13:59:00 EDT
In-Reply-To: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
"Gee, why are LM's tired of AOLers?" (Apr 6, 10:20am)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Gee, why are LM's tired of AOLers?
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Precedence: bulk
I think I would change your subject to "why are LM's so sensitive"?
FTF communication between human beings is difficult enough. E-mail,
lacking instantaneous response and non-verbal clues is much worse.
I think David B. O'Donnell's message is quite reasonable, clear, and
polite. What more do you want from the guy???
Other comments on your message follow.
--Mike
> I'm forwarding a copy of email I got from someone
> at AOL calling himself a "System Administrator".
This is demeaning in that you are implying he is *not* a system
administrator, at least in the way you think of system administrator.
Insulting people in e-mail is unlikely to elicit cooperation. If your
intention is to insult, then I think that speaks for itself.
From list-managers-owner Wed Apr 6 11:38:44 1994
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From: Keith Moore
To: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com, moore@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: Where bounces go to
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 06 Apr 1994 10:33:16 EDT."
<199404061433.KAA11798@z.nsf.gov>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 1994 14:31:12 -0400
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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> Am I correct in my understanding that mailers should be sending
> bounces to the From address from the envelope (or to be more precise,
> the address specified in the MAIL FROM: line in the SMTP interchange)?
Yes.
> Am I also correct in my understanding that this address is the one
> displayed on most Unix sendmail-based systems in the "From"
> line that delimits mail messages?
Usually. However, since some user agents use that field for replies,
some delivery agents put a different address in that field.
> Assuming I'm correct, I am considering not allowing folks to
> subscribe to my lists if their mailer doesn't send errors back to
> the correct address. (I have little tolerance for bounces.) I would
> just build up, manually, a list of host names that don't follow the
> spec. If someone with one of the hostnames tried to subscribe, they'd
> get back a message saying something like, "I know it's probably not
> your fault, but we don't allow non-RFC compliant mailers to use our
> lists. Please have your postmaster contact ______ when it's fixed,
> blah, blah, blah."
>
> Questions: Has anyone taken this extreme step? What are the possible
> reprecussions.
I take somewhat less extreme measures. When someone wants to subscribe to one
of my lists using an address that looks like the name of a sub-list, I first
send that person a message asking if the sub-list sets the envelope address
properly. If not, I try to help them fix their mailer.
I have only occasional problems with bounces going to any of my lists, and
the usual culprit is a gateway to a non-Internet mail system which doesn't
keep separate header/envelope addresses.
Then again, my lists don't reset the From header field, so broken mailers will
bounce messages to the sender of the message instead of the list. That's far
from ideal, but at least it doesn't trash the entire list.
Keith Moore
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 7 00:06:44 1994
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From: KRAV.DPCPO004@DSKMGWS1.itg.ti.com (Alan Kravitz)
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 1994 14:45 CST
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Commercial Listserv Providers
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I'm looking for some direction and hope that someone on this list can help
me.
My employer Texas Instruments is sponsoring discussion lists on Internet
concerning products we provide to students and educators. Many of you are
probably familiar with these products, TI graphing and scientific
calculators. We currently sponsor two lists at a Ohio State University
(Graph-TI & Calc-TI), but would like to establish a business relationship
with a commercial service provider to take over the duties being provided by
OSU. The services were looking for include discussion lists (listserv &
network news) and an archive for source code from users and TI product
information (ftp site). Other services we are interested in obtaining from a
service provider include Gopher, Archie, WAIS, WWW for our information.
Because our customers are students and educators, we feel that Internet
(which is widely available to these groups at no cost to them) is the right
mechanism to provide the forum for people to exchange information about our
products. Commercial services such as Prodigy, CompuServe, America Online and
Delphi could provide these services but most students and educators have told
us that they don't access these commercial services.
TI does have a presence on the Internet, but for security reasons, we can't
host lists and provide anonymous ftp from computing resources on TI's
internal network. Therefore, we'd like to locate a service provider who is
in the business of providing these kinds of services.
Again, any help from list managers would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Alan Kravitz
==============================================================================
=
Texas Instruments
Personal Productivity Products Phone:(214) 917-6395
7800 Banner Drive, MS 3911 FAX: (214) 917-1505
Dallas, Texas 75251 Internet Address:
akravitz@lobby.ti.com
==============================================================================
=
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 7 14:46:20 1994
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Date: Thu, 07 Apr 1994 10:43:58 EDT
From: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Message-ID: <0097C98B.7B3950E0.20593@cvi.hahnemann.edu>
Subject: Insults, competence, etc.
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse) writes:
> I think I would change your subject to "why are LM's so sensitive"?
> FTF communication between human beings is difficult enough. E-mail,
> lacking instantaneous response and non-verbal clues is much worse.
> I think David B. O'Donnell's message is quite reasonable, clear, and
> polite. What more do you want from the guy???
1. I would like his mail to go to the right place? Like the list
instead of my mailbox?
2. I would like his followup to somebody else, which also
mistakenly came into my mailbox, and which attributed
to me some things I NEVER said, to also go to the
right place? (No, I'm not forwarding it. If he didn't
save a copy, he's fucked.)
3. I would like a little more confidence in the forgery-sniffing
talents of someone who can't even manage to handle attributes,
send REPLIES to LIST MESSAGES to the LIST, or figure out from
standard attribute cues who did (or didn't) say something.
4. I would like to think that before running around screaming
"Forgery! Forgery!" the AOL people would have more evidence
than how (un)believable they found the performance of the
sysadmins when answering questions.
> This is demeaning in that you are implying he is *not* a system
> administrator, at least in the way you think of system administrator.
> Insulting people in e-mail is unlikely to elicit cooperation.
The only cooperation I need from him at this point
is for him to stop sending me email intended for someone else
and misattributing others' prose to me.
Of course, his competence at actually sending mail says little
about his ability to sniff out and finger forgeries. :)
+------ Anthony J. Rzepela rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu -----+
| Hahnemann University, Philadelphia (215) 762-7741 |
| I do not speak for, or represent, Hahnemann University or AHERF. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 7 15:12:02 1994
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From: stevep@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca (Steve Portigal)
Message-Id: <9404071511.AA22846@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca>
Subject: bitnet go bye-bye?
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 94 11:11:46 EDT
In-Reply-To: <199404070810.BAA10737@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>; from "List-Managers-Digest-Owner@GreatCircle.COM" at Apr 7, 94 1:10 am
Organization: Your Company Name Here
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
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At any rate the problem I'm
having is with BITNET users on my mailing list. They *all* bounced last
night. I'm wondering if there was some sudden shift from BITNET
address to the Internet-style equivalents.
If so, then I would expect any reader concerned to mail me with new
email information. It hasn't happened. Do all BITNET sites have
Internet equivalents? Can anyone suggest a painless way of finding
them all, or should I just delete 'em all.
OR: is this a one-time occurrence perhaps and they'll all be back
tomorrow?
Ie, I haven't isolated the cause let alone the solution
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Steve Portigal ** User-Interface Dude (looking for work) |
| View my M.Sc. thesis online at: http://130.43.3.18/ |
| stevep@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca Voice/Fax: (905) 632 6647 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 7 08:28:52 1994
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From: pmdatropos@aol.com
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Message-Id: <9404071117.tn509981@aol.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 94 11:17:43 EDT
Subject: Re: Insults, competence, etc.
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu writes:
[ ... ]
>2. I would like his followup to somebody else, which also
> mistakenly came into my mailbox, and which attributed
> to me some things I NEVER said, to also go to the
> right place? (No, I'm not forwarding it. If he didn't
> save a copy, he's fucked.)
Mr Rzepela only received *carbon-copies* of messages sent to other
individuals. My *original* response was to him, this list (which was delayed
due to an error on my part; heaven forbid I actually be human and make
mistakes), and two other individuals.
>3. I would like a little more confidence in the forgery-sniffing
> talents of someone who can't even manage to handle attributes,
> send REPLIES to LIST MESSAGES to the LIST, or figure out from
> standard attribute cues who did (or didn't) say something.
>From the original message to List-Managers:
Date: Tue, 05 Apr 1994 15:29:35 EDT
From: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Message-Id: <0097C821.0C986920.20120@cvi.hahnemann.edu>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Subject: AOL flexing some muscle (USENET posting)
>4. I would like to think that before running around screaming
> "Forgery! Forgery!" the AOL people would have more evidence
> than how (un)believable they found the performance of the
> sysadmins when answering questions.
You are, of course, welcome to believe what you will. We are satisfied that
the investigation performed by NASA on its equipment was sufficient. Clearly
they must have found evidence which indicated *to them* that something had
happened. Our role in this affair was to alert them to a possible security
breach at one of their machines.
Personally, I don't see what the continuation of this thread has to do with
managing mailing lists, so I encourage further discussion to take place in a
more appropriate forum.
__ David B. O'Donnell (PMDAtropos@aol.com, atropos@aol.net)
\/ System Administrator, America Online, Inc.
Tel.: +1 703/556-3725
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 7 15:41:42 1994
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From: stevep@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca (Steve Portigal)
Message-Id: <9404071541.AA23210@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca>
Subject: More on bitnet woes
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 94 11:41:20 EDT
Organization: Your Company Name Here
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On May 1, we are told that
The old-style e-mail addresses of userid@uoguelph (does not
include the .ca) or userid@remotesite.BITNET will no longer work
as of May 1st, 1994
I took that to mean that we could not receive mail to our bitnet
address (which we don't use) but that we could still send. Perhaps
that's not true. Here are all the errors I'm getting:
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 Host 'pucc.BITNET' Unknown
550 name@pucc.bitnet... User unknown
of course, the pucc part is quite varied, including a whole range
of bitnet sites.
I'm still not sure if the problem is something being turned off at Guelph
or something "out there"
Steve
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Steve Portigal ** User-Interface Dude (looking for work) |
| View my M.Sc. thesis online at: http://130.43.3.18/ |
| stevep@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca Voice/Fax: (905) 632 6647 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 7 15:54:43 1994
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To: stevep@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca (Steve Portigal)
Cc: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: bitnet go bye-bye?
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 07 Apr 94 11:11:46 EDT."
<9404071511.AA22846@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 94 11:53:20 -0400
From: Mitch Collinsworth
X-Mts: smtp
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>At any rate the problem I'm
>having is with BITNET users on my mailing list. They *all* bounced last
>night. I'm wondering if there was some sudden shift from BITNET
>address to the Internet-style equivalents.
How does your system route mail to bitnet? If you're not directly connected,
then it must be via a gateway. Did you try asking the gateway operator?
Bitnet *is* going away in the near future. Cornell, for example, is shooting
for a September 1 disconnect.
>Do all BITNET sites have
>Internet equivalents?
Not necessarily, but if they want to stay connected they will soon.
>On May 1, we are told that
> The old-style e-mail addresses of userid@uoguelph (does not
> include the .ca) or userid@remotesite.BITNET will no longer work
> as of May 1st, 1994
>
>I took that to mean that we could not receive mail to our bitnet
>address (which we don't use) but that we could still send. Perhaps
>that's not true. Here are all the errors I'm getting:
>
>>>> RCPT To:
><<< 550 Host 'pucc.BITNET' Unknown
>550 name@pucc.bitnet... User unknown
>
>of course, the pucc part is quite varied, including a whole range
>of bitnet sites.
>
>I'm still not sure if the problem is something being turned off at Guelph
>or something "out there"
Apparently vm.uoguelph.ca is the gateway you've been using and it's stopped
working. Ask them if it's permanent or accidental. If permanent you need
to move to a different gateway.
-Mitch
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 8 07:46:54 1994
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From: Ben.Goren@asu.edu
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Date: Thu, 7 Apr 1994 09:58:58 -0700
To: KRAV.DPCPO004@DSKMGWS1.itg.ti.com (Alan Kravitz),
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Commercial Listserv Providers
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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At 2:45 PM 4/6/94 -0600, Alan Kravitz wrote:
>[. . .]
>TI does have a presence on the Internet, but for security reasons, we can't
>host lists and provide anonymous ftp from computing resources on TI's
>internal network. Therefore, we'd like to locate a service provider who is
>in the business of providing these kinds of services.
What not put a single machine on the other side of your firewall? It sounds
like you've got all the expertise and equipment you need; why pay somebody
else to do what you can do just as well yourself?
>Again, any help from list managers would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Regards,
>Alan Kravitz
b&
----
Ben.Goren@asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music
Protect your privacy; oppose Clipper. Write to me for info.
Finger ben@tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key.
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 8 14:45:20 1994
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Date: Fri, 08 Apr 1994 10:17:27 EDT
From: "Anthony J. Rzepela"
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Message-ID: <0097CA50.F130A300.20913@cvi.hahnemann.edu>
Subject: It has a LOT to do with list management issues
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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pmdatropos@aol.com writes:
> Personally, I don't see what the continuation of this thread has to do with
> managing mailing lists, so I encourage further discussion to take place in a
> more appropriate forum.
It has a lot to do with it.
AOLers (and others, for sure) have been a list management headache
for some time. Some of us have shorter tempers than others. A
thorough airing of the true sequence of events in this debacle, is,
IMHO, extremely important to anyone even toying with the idea of
making AOL angry.
> Mr Rzepela only received *carbon-copies* of messages sent to other
> individuals. My *original* response was to him, this list (which was delayed
> due to an error on my part; heaven forbid I actually be human and make
> mistakes), and two other individuals.
I get the digest. I still haven't seen either of the
messages you sent to me appear here, except that I was
gracious enough to forward the first one.
Regardless of where they were supposed to go, you DID,
in the second, attribute someone else's moaning about AOL to me,
and that attribution was WRONG. Seeing the heavy penalties one
suffers for moaning about AOL these days, that is a pretty serious
misattribution.
> You are, of course, welcome to believe what you will. We are satisfied that
> the investigation performed by NASA on its equipment was sufficient.
You were also satisfied that you knew how to work email.
> Clearly they must have found evidence which indicated *to them*
> that something had happened.
You have absolutely no basis for saying that.
Unless there was some other mail that still hasn't gotten from
you to the list, I have seen NO evidence that the "government"
site did anything except shut down a filmmakers' list, which,
while annoying, is certainly within their domain (i.e., making sure
their resources are being spent as they see fit).
> Our role in this affair was to alert them to a possible security
> breach at one of their machines.
And what, exactly, was this "security breach"? What measures,
exactly, did they take, apart from shutting down a list that
wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, a piece of information
probably discovered in their "investigation"?
This statement:
> Clearly they must have found evidence which indicated *to them*
> that something had happened.
is just stoopid.
Sounds to me like somebody pissed off AOL, and paid.
If that's the way you people operate, it IS a list managers' issue.
+------ Anthony J. Rzepela rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu -----+
| Hahnemann University, Philadelphia (215) 762-7741 |
| I do not speak for, or represent, Hahnemann University or AHERF. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 8 18:52:16 1994
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To: rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <0097CA50.F130A300.20913@cvi.hahnemann.edu> "rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu"
Reply-To: tower@prep.ai.mit.edu
Organization: Project GNU, Free Software Foundation,
675 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139-3309, USA +1-617-876-3296
Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA 02143, USA +1-617-623-7739
Subject: It has a LOT to do with list management issues
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oland
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 8 20:26:23 1994
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To: list-managers@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 94 16:22:26 EDT
Subject: Re: It has a LOT to do with l...
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu writes:
[ ... ]
>AOLers (and others, for sure) have been a list management headache
>for some time. Some of us have shorter tempers than others. A
>thorough airing of the true sequence of events in this debacle, is,
>IMHO, extremely important to anyone even toying with the idea of
>making AOL angry.
And the true sequence has been aired. To summarise:
(1) Several weeks ago I received bounced mail which indicated that a USENET
article allegedly by me was being returned for bad headers.
(2) Since this article did not originate from me, we contacted the
postmasters at the sites where the mail had either originated or traversed a
connection. The responses from all by the postmaster@grissom.larc.nasa.gov
were sufficiently authoritative to satisfy our concerns.
(3) Since the postmaster@grissom..'s was not, we were concerned that there
may have been a security breach at that site. We contacted NASA and informed
them of our concern.
(4) Several days later we recived mail from NASA indicating they had
investigated the event and that they considered the case closed.
(5) An article alleging that America Online had complained to Scott Dorsey's
management of his "mail forgery" and "misuse of government equipment", and
calling for a complaint campaign, appeared in this and other lists and
newsgroups.
(6) I responded to this initial wave with the situation as it took place on
our side, mentioning repeatedly that Mr Dorsey was *NOT* accused of any
wrongdoing, and that we at NO TIME asked his management to tell him to shut
down the filmmakers list. To be blunt, the claims in the letter sent here and
elsewhere are completely fraudulent.
(7) Since this event has been dragged out, we have contacted NASA again for
further details. We were informed that NASA had obtained conclusive evidence
that grissom.larc.nasa.gov was involved in the forgery of a USENET article.
>Regardless of where they were supposed to go, you DID,
>in the second, attribute someone else's moaning about AOL to me,
>and that attribution was WRONG. Seeing the heavy penalties one
>suffers for moaning about AOL these days, that is a pretty serious
>misattribution.
Seeing that the "heavy penalties one suffers" are baseless, I assume you can
draw your own conclusions.
>> Clearly they must have found evidence which indicated *to them*
>> that something had happened.
>You have absolutely no basis for saying that.
See points (4) and (7), above. I have more than enough reason to state the
above.
>Unless there was some other mail that still hasn't gotten from
>you to the list, I have seen NO evidence that the "government"
>site did anything except shut down a filmmakers' list, which,
>while annoying, is certainly within their domain (i.e., making sure
>their resources are being spent as they see fit).
Again, see (7). I will reiterate AGAIN that we were not involved in any
effort to shut down the filmmakers list.
>> Our role in this affair was to alert them to a possible security
>> breach at one of their machines.
>And what, exactly, was this "security breach"? What measures,
>exactly, did they take, apart from shutting down a list that
>wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, a piece of information
>probably discovered in their "investigation"?
See the numbered items above. NASA did not divulge their methods to us, and I
do not particularly see why we have reason to question them.
>Sounds to me like somebody pissed off AOL, and paid.
No, it sounds like someone is trying to mount yet another bash-America Online
campaign.
>If that's the way you people operate, it IS a list managers' issue.
It's not the way we operate.
__ David B. O'Donnell (PMDAtropos@aol.com, atropos@aol.net)
\/ System Administrator, America Online, Inc.
Tel.: +1 703/556-3725
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 8 23:07:18 1994
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To: list-managers@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Subject: Re: It has a LOT to do with l...
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 1994 16:07:11 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Folks, this is getting a little personal. List-Managers is a
remarkably flame-free list, and I'd like it to stay that way.
Thanks!
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 10 00:23:37 1994
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Date: Sun, 10 Apr 1994 09:05:20 JST
From: dkanagy@twics.com
Reply-To: dkanagy@twics.com
To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM
Message-ID: <0097CBD9.332DF260.26@tanuki.twics.com>
Subject: Missing subscriber list
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I administer a list for Japanese/English translators at NETCOM
called HONYAKU. I recently ran into an unsettling problem.
One person managed to subscribe to the list with a nonstandard
address that was causing repeated delivery errors. As a
result, I decided to unsubscribe the address since this person
wasn't receiving anything from the list anyway and since the
address was just cluttering up my mailbox. (This is not the
unsettling problem.) But in trying to do so, majordomo at
NETCOM did not accept my command, saying there was no match
for the address I tried to unsubscribe. Wondering if there
might be a discrepancy between the address I tried to
unsubscribe and how the address was actually recorded, I sent
the "who honyaku" command to confirm.
This yielded a list with no names on it. This morning a
submission by someone who has been on the list for some time
bounced, someone whose address I know is valid. (I have
HONYAKU set to external moderation.) Also, I received e-mail
from the list server saying a new person had subscribed.
Doing another "who honyaku," I received a list with only one
person on it--the latest subscriber. This suggests to me that
the list of HONYAKU subscribers at NETCOM has been wiped out
for some reason.
If true, this is extremely unsettling. What could cause
something like this and how can I prevent this from happening
again? Naturally, I'm raising the matter with NETCOM but I'm
also asking the question here to see what I can learn about
this problem.
I'm quite new at administering mailing lists. HONYAKU got its
start the first week of March. Any help or advice with this
problem will be greatly appreciated.
________________________________________________________________________
Dan Kanagy dkanagy@twics.com
Tokyo, Japan dkanagy@netcom.com
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 11:38:51 1994
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From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
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Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 13:38:30 +0200
Message-Id: <199404111138.6088.solva.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Transient failures == lots of warnings
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I run a couple of moderate sized mailing lists by hand with
traditional Unix software.
Lately, I've been getting storms of "bounces" from mail hosts which
think it is proper to notify the sender that the mail has been in the
queue for 4 hours or a day without successful delivery. This is fine
for personal correspendence, but it just a nuisance and a waste of
bandwidth to do this for mailing lists.
That's the problem. Is there a solution? I would like the possibility
to add information that I don't want warning bounces somewhere in the
headers. Some people put a Priority header in their mail. Are any mail
configurations set up so as to for example neglect sending bounces to
messages with "Priority: junk"?
Any ideas welcome.
Kjetil T.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 13:52:35 1994
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From: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods)
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Subject: Re: Transient failures == lots of warnings
To: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no (Kjetil Torgrim Homme)
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 94 7:50:02 MDT
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199404111138.6088.solva.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>; from "Kjetil Torgrim Homme" at Apr 11, 94 1:38 pm
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I can't speak for the general case, but we have a queue warning mechanism
in place here, that sends warning messages after 1 hour and after 24 hours
(our post office machine will bounce the entire message if it has not been
delivered for 5 days, and our users complained vigorously about not
having any way to know if their mail is still queued on the post office
system during that time). Our particular program is designed to only send
these warnings to senders within our own domain.
The point of mentioning this is that there is not, to my knowledge,
any standard way of implementing this. We did it from scratch. The
site in question probably did so as well; you might try contacting
the postmaster at that particular site. They may simply not realize
that the messages are annoying to you.
--Greg (postmaster@ucar.edu)
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 14:08:12 1994
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Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 10:07:44 -0400
From: Dave Sill
Message-Id: <199404111407.KAA17520@de5.CTD.ORNL.GOV>
To: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods)
Cc: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no (Kjetil Torgrim Homme), list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Transient failures == lots of warnings
In-Reply-To: <199404111350.HAA04146@ncar.ucar.EDU>
References: <199404111138.6088.solva.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
<199404111350.HAA04146@ncar.ucar.EDU>
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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>I can't speak for the general case, but we have a queue warning mechanism
>in place here, that sends warning messages after 1 hour and after 24 hours
>(our post office machine will bounce the entire message if it has not been
>delivered for 5 days, and our users complained vigorously about not
>having any way to know if their mail is still queued on the post office
>system during that time). Our particular program is designed to only send
>these warnings to senders within our own domain.
>
>The point of mentioning this is that there is not, to my knowledge,
>any standard way of implementing this. We did it from scratch. The
>site in question probably did so as well; you might try contacting
>the postmaster at that particular site. They may simply not realize
>that the messages are annoying to you.
This is a standard feature of sendmail 8. From my sendmail.cf:
# default message timeout interval
OT5d/4h
Which means bounce after 5 days, warn after 4 hours.
--
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) I dream of a televisionland where it will be
Martin Marietta Energy Systems as hard for a network to expose us to violence
Workstation Support as it is for me to tell someone they have
spinach on their teeth. --Paula Poundstone
URL http://www.dec.com/pub/DEC/DECinfo/html/dsill.html
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 16:06:36 1994
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From: "Mark E. Mallett"
Message-Id: <199404111606.MAA28471@mv.mv.com>
Subject: Re: Transient failures == lots of warnings
To: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no (Kjetil Torgrim Homme)
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 12:06:13 -0400 (WET DST)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199404111138.6088.solva.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no> from "Kjetil Torgrim Homme" at Apr 11, 94 01:38:30 pm
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>
> Lately, I've been getting storms of "bounces" from mail hosts which
> think it is proper to notify the sender that the mail has been in the
> queue for 4 hours or a day without successful delivery. This is fine
> for personal correspendence, but it just a nuisance and a waste of
> bandwidth to do this for mailing lists.
I believe that if you put a "Precedence: list" in your mail header,
sendmail will abstain from sending you those warning-only messages.
-mm-
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 18:36:30 1994
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Date: Mon, 11 Apr 94 14:37:05 EDT
From: mcr@spiff.ccs.carleton.ca (Michael Richardson)
Message-Id: <9404111837.AA10028@spiff.ccs.carleton.ca>
To: woods@ncar.UCAR.EDU
Cc: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: Greg Woods's message of Mon, 11 Apr 94 7:50:02 MDT <199404111350.HAA04146@ncar.ucar.EDU>
Subject: Transient failures == lots of warnings
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Most UUCP implementations provide for no-connection warnings. This
is usually implemented in the 'uucleanup' command, and is called from
uudemon.daily. This is a transport level thing, so it bounces queued
news as well as queued mail, and does not examine headers. The only
way I can see modifying that behaviour would be via a flag to uux, and
patches to sendmail/smail to allow choice of deliver agent based on
Priority: header.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 19:02:18 1994
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From: Keith Moore
To: "Mark E. Mallett"
cc: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no (Kjetil Torgrim Homme), list-managers@greatcircle.com,
moore@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: Transient failures == lots of warnings
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 11 Apr 1994 12:06:13 EDT."
<199404111606.MAA28471@mv.mv.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 15:01:18 -0400
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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> I believe that if you put a "Precedence: list" in your mail header,
> sendmail will abstain from sending you those warning-only messages.
Beware: there is at least one mail gateway that will bounce any
message that contains a Precedence header with a keyword that
it doesn't recognize.
In general, it's dangerous to specify any MTA behavior in the header,
not just because it's a layering violation, but also because there's no
agreement among MTAs to conform to the expected behavior.
Keith
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 19:20:06 1994
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From: "Mark E. Mallett"
Message-Id: <199404111919.PAA26411@mv.mv.com>
Subject: Re: Transient failures == lots of warnings
To: moore@cs.utk.edu (Keith Moore)
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 15:19:15 -0400 (WET DST)
Cc: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, moore@cs.utk.edu
In-Reply-To: <199404111901.PAA09125@wilma.cs.utk.edu> from "Keith Moore" at Apr 11, 94 03:01:18 pm
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> > I believe that if you put a "Precedence: list" in your mail header,
> > sendmail will abstain from sending you those warning-only messages.
>
> Beware: there is at least one mail gateway that will bounce any
> message that contains a Precedence header with a keyword that
> it doesn't recognize.
Which mail gateway did you have in mind?
> In general, it's dangerous to specify any MTA behavior in the header,
> not just because it's a layering violation, but also because there's no
> agreement among MTAs to conform to the expected behavior.
Perhaps, but it's convenient and at least partially achieves the
result. I note, for instance, that your mail to me (which I am
quoting) arrived with a "Precedence: bulk" in the header. People
use this because it works for many cases, and although some mail systems
ignore it, it is better to use it and have some advantage from it,
than not to use it and have no advantage from it.
The killer that you mentioned above (a mail gateway that rejects mail
with header elements it doesn't like) would seem to present a choice
between two evils, and you pick which one you want to deal with.
Best if that mail gateway could be convinced that it didn't have
an absolute knowledge of what was best for everyone. :-)
-mm-
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 21:02:25 1994
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From: Keith Moore
To: "Mark E. Mallett"
cc: moore@cs.utk.edu (Keith Moore), kjetilho@ifi.uio.no,
list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Transient failures == lots of warnings
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 11 Apr 1994 15:19:15 EDT."
<199404111919.PAA26411@mv.mv.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 17:01:23 -0400
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
> > > I believe that if you put a "Precedence: list" in your mail header,
> > > sendmail will abstain from sending you those warning-only messages.
> >
> > Beware: there is at least one mail gateway that will bounce any
> > message that contains a Precedence header with a keyword that
> > it doesn't recognize.
>
> Which mail gateway did you have in mind?
I don't know the exact name. It's a DEC product for gatewaying between
RFC 822 mail on Ultrix and mailbus. The problem was, for mail to the
Internet, it tried to map the mailbus "precedence" value into the 822
precedence header, and they don't have the same meaning. (not that the
822 meaning is defined.)
> > In general, it's dangerous to specify any MTA behavior in the header,
> > not just because it's a layering violation, but also because there's
> > no agreement among MTAs to conform to the expected behavior.
>
> Perhaps, but it's convenient and at least partially achieves the
> result.
But at what cost? These things cause real operational problems in
the global Internet mail system.
> I note, for instance, that your mail to me (which I am
> quoting) arrived with a "Precedence: bulk" in the header. People
> use this because it works for many cases, and although some mail
> systems ignore it, it is better to use it and have some advantage
> from it, than not to use it and have no advantage from it.
Again, you have to consider the cost.
As it turns out, I have experience that "Precedence: bulk" doesn't cause
problems with that particular gateway, but that "Precedence: junk" does.
So I made a design decision in my own list expander to label list traffic
with "Precedence: bulk" to keep from getting messages from vacation.
(I'm pretty sure that the same gateway would bounce "Precedence: list")
The amount of brain-damage results from using ad hoc protocols
keeps increasing. I realize that things like Precedence,
Return-Receipt-To, and Errors-To were created to address real
needs and aren't going to go away anytime soon -- certainly not
until there's a better mechanism that's widely deployed.
But I want to discourage people from inventing/using new ad-hoc
mechanisms, especially by specifying MTA-level functionality at the
UA-level protocol. Such actions deteriorate the reliability of the
Internet mail system.
Keith
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 22:39:48 1994
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Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 18:39:45 -0400
From: Paul Graham
Message-Id: <199404112239.SAA26372@urth.acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: return-receipt-to: attack
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
a list i'm on (operlist@kei.com) received a message with
return-receipt-to: operlist@kei.com. this turns out to be a bit
annoying. has anyone else seen this? anything besides sendmail
susceptible? what sorts of techniques are used to deal with this?
the lists i run elide the line so i assume that this will only
encourage sendmail the one time.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 11 23:27:27 1994
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From: Larry Sheldon
Subject: Re: return-receipt-to: attack
To: pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham)
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 94 18:26:47 CDT
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199404112239.SAA26372@urth.acsu.buffalo.edu>; from "Paul Graham" at Apr 11, 94 6:39 pm
Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85.2.1]
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Paul Graham said:
> a list i'm on (operlist@kei.com) received a message with
> return-receipt-to: operlist@kei.com. this turns out to be a bit
> annoying. has anyone else seen this? anything besides sendmail
> susceptible? what sorts of techniques are used to deal with this?
> the lists i run elide the line so i assume that this will only
> encourage sendmail the one time.
We had the problem here, but I don't think it was sendmail that was the
major problem--as near as I can tell, the first MTA to hanndle some of the
return requests, send a reply back, but the major problem was that majordomo
passed the offending headers (there are at least two to worry about) thru--
and every Pegasus UA sent the reply back to the list, which sent . . . and
so on and so on.
I hacked majordomo to throw the offending headers away on input. I can
probably find the hack and pass it along if anybody is interested in it.
Your mileage may vary.
--
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
. L. F. (Larry) Sheldon, Jr. .
- Unix Systems Administration -
. Creighton University Computer Center - Old Gym .
- 2500 California Plaza -
. Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A. 68178 .
- 402 280 2254 lsheldon@creighton.edu -
. .
- A hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong. -
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 14 18:15:22 1994
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From: Keith Moore
To: "Mark E. Mallett"
cc: moore@cs.utk.edu (Keith Moore), kjetilho@ifi.uio.no,
list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Transient failures == lots of warnings
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 11 Apr 1994 15:19:15 EDT."
<199404111919.PAA26411@mv.mv.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 14:14:21 -0400
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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Another comment re: "precedence: list"
> The killer that you mentioned above (a mail gateway that rejects mail
> with header elements it doesn't like) would seem to present a choice
> between two evils, and you pick which one you want to deal with.
> Best if that mail gateway could be convinced that it didn't have
> an absolute knowledge of what was best for everyone. :-)
This is just the "agreement" problem in disguise. Sendmail has its own
idea of what "precedence" means. In the mailbus environment,
"precedence" means something different, which has nothing to do with
whether transient failure reports, vacation messages, etc., should be
issued. No doubt both of these are "convinced" that their use of the
precedence header doesn't cause any problems for anyone else.
``When I use a word,'' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,
``it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.''
``The question is,'' said Alice, ``whether you _can_ make words mean
so many different things.''
``The question is,'' said Humpty Dumpty, ``which is to be master--
that's all.''
- from Through the Looking Glass
by Lewis Carroll
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 16 01:10:30 1994
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From asharpe Fri Apr 15 17:53:03 1994
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To: asharpe@sco.COM
Subject: Re: Please Subscribe
From: Intuitive Systems Postmaster
Your message to Digital Games cannot be delivered because the
electronic magazine has been permanently shut down.
If you can notify the person, list, or site that supplied you
with the information on Digital Games, that'll ensure that others
don't also go through this confusion.
Questions? Feel free to drop me a note at "taylor@intuitive.com".
Happy gaming!
-- Dave Taylor
former editor, Digital Games Review
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
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SUBSCRIBE Andrew Sharpe
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 21 21:38:40 1994
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From: sullivan@fa.disney.com
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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 94 17:17 PDT
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Superhighway Growth
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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This is a topic I alluded to in an earlier post but now I actually have to
deal with: tremendous list membership growth. In less than a year my
"weights" list has gone from under 500 subscribers and a mailing (it's
digest-only) pretty much every day to over 1400 subscribers today and
days with more than one mailing due to the number of contributions not
uncommon. It's so big that I can only send the issues out at night or
face the wrath of everybody here for clogging up the mail queue.
Actually my main reason for asking about the list breakup is the volume
of contributions rather than the number of subscribers. People are actually
leaving the list because they don't want to wade through all of the
contributions. I want people to find the list useful but if it's too
cluttered, it becomes less useful.
I've started a discussion on the list of possibly narrowing the focus of
the list and breaking off part into a newsgroup so we'll see how that goes.
I guess my question is, how are you folks handling this recent growth spurt
(if you're seeing one)? Is your volume becoming such that there's just
too much information? How are your machines handling the volume? If
you think things are bad now, what do you think is going to happen in
the next year?
Michael Sullivan sullivan@fa.disney.com
Walt Disney Feature Animation +1 818 544 2683 (voice)
Glendale, CA +1 818 544 4579 (fax)
From list-managers-owner Thu Apr 21 22:41:48 1994
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Date: Thu, 21 Apr 94 15:42:01 -0700
From: Chuq Von Rospach
Message-Id: <9404212242.AA27470@apple.com>
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, sullivan@fa.disney.com
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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>I guess my question is, how are you folks handling this recent growth spurt
>(if you're seeing one)? Is your volume becoming such that there's just
>too much information? How are your machines handling the volume? If
>you think things are bad now, what do you think is going to happen in
>the next year?
I've just switched from a manual system to listproc (with fewer glitches
than expected, too), but beyond that, I took the time to restructure two of
the three lists we run here. the minor league list got split in two, minors
and minors-scores, because that seemed to be a logical break in the data.
The SF Giants list is now four: giants, giants-tickets (buy/sell),
giants-scores and baseball-caht (for all that stuff that we'd love to send
to rec.sports.baseball, but we can't tolerate the noise). We're probably
also going to split the Sharks list into four pieces soon.
fortunately, the lists have certain sub-sets of information that pretty
clearly have audiences that polarize. People either are or aren't interested
in buying tickets to games, so by splitting it off, we clear that stuff out
of the boxes of the "aren't" group without impacting the "are".
So far (very early returns), it seems to be working.
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 22 12:18:33 1994
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From: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse)
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:18:20 EDT
In-Reply-To: sullivan@fa.disney.com
"Superhighway Growth" (Apr 20, 5:17pm)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90)
To: sullivan@fa.disney.com, List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
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> If
> you think things are bad now, what do you think is going to happen in
> the next year?
I think it's going to get unmanageable everywhere. Netnews, which is
much better able to handle this architecturally is already swamped in
many topics. Some topics just don't split well. In other words, if
you split them, almost all members subscribe to all the splits.
The only solution I can think of is multiple communities discussing the
same subject. In other words, multiple independent mailing lists that
discuss the same topic. A person would pick one to join, and only
discuss with folks on that list. In a way, this is already happening
on things like Compuserv or AOL, where you only discuss with other
people who pay the same vendor to be a member. But those services
will eventually be so big they have the same problem.
How would one decide which list to join? Geographical separation
occurred to me first, but it doesn't make that much sense on the
Internet. This wouldn't be a perfect solution (or even close) since
many people with obscure questions would post to all the lists on the
topic, and there would be a great need for cross-fertilization, such as
maintaining FAQ lists.
To use an example from the "real" world: You can't have a
"discussion" in a room with 500 participants. The only solution I see
is to break the group up into smaller groups. I don't think there are
any examples of where this has been tried, though.
--Mike
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 22 12:46:36 1994
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Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:37:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Casti
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
To: "Michael H. Morse"
Cc: sullivan@fa.disney.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199404221218.IAA29207@z.nsf.gov>
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On Fri, 22 Apr 1994, Michael H. Morse wrote:
> I think it's going to get unmanageable everywhere. Netnews, which is
> much better able to handle this architecturally is already swamped in
> many topics. Some topics just don't split well. In other words, if
> you split them, almost all members subscribe to all the splits.
True, but threading goes a long way to help this. It isn't necessary for
you to read every message in a newsgroup -- only the ones on the
subtopics that catch your attention. Add to this various autoselection
tools and "scoring" newsreaders, and you've gained the ability to wade
through a tremendous amount of information intelligently.
I don't see how this helps mailing lists, though. Perhaps the mail as a
conference tool will be of diminishing importance as more powerful network
conferencing systems are developed. Lists will be confined to small
groups of friends or specialized topics which aren't discussed widely
enough to warrant a newsgroup.
David.
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 22 16:53:44 1994
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From: Ben.Goren@asu.edu
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Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 09:54:52 -0700
To: mmorse@nsf.gov (Michael H. Morse), sullivan@fa.disney.com,
List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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I think it likely that we'll see an increasing number of lists with a small
number of "regulars" and vast numbers of lurkers. That's already happened
on my favorite lists; I suspect that some lists will have such a structure
mandated by their owners.
A suggestion some of you might wish to consider: pick a dozen or so
regulars you've got now, people whom you trust, and make them all list
editors . (With Eric Thomas' LISTSERV, mail sent to the list goes to
editors, if specified, and only an editor or an owner can actually post. I
suspect other programs have similar facilities.) Then, if somebody wants to
post, it first gets filtered through the regulars. If any one of them
thinks it's worth passing on to the list, it goes through. If the editors
wish, they can come to some sort of consensus to add new people to their
ranks.
With a carefully selected group of editors, you'll have most points of view
already covered, and, presumably a mechanism where others who have
something "worthwhile" to say will be heard. It'd have to be done
carefully, but it could save an otherwise sinking list.
And those who don't like it can always start their own lists. (:-)
b&
----
Ben.Goren@asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music
Protect your privacy; oppose Clipper. Write to me for info.
Finger ben@tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key.
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 22 16:56:28 1994
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Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 09:56:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Richard Porter
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199404221218.IAA29207@z.nsf.gov>
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Perhaps as growth goes geometric the diseconomies of scale for open
access mail and news groups will force gate keeping by moderators. This
has been the experience with ECOLOG-L/sci.bio.ecology, where the sheer
volume of newsgroup noise forced the list owner of ECOLOG-L to filter the
gateway.
The explosion of messages is inevitable for mail reflectors; however
software already exists to filter subscribers and exclude non-members.
I believe the real problem will lie with straight mail. Just as it pays
for marketers to seek out and compile smail addresses, it will pay
marketers to do the same for email. And they can set up there own mail
reflectors (particularly if they access through PFS servers, such as
Compu$erve or AOL, or if they have their own net access). I cannot
prevent people from sending directly to my address. I am far more
concerned with junk mail sent directly to me, rather than via reflectors
and listserv/listproc and its variants.
richard m porter
From list-managers-owner Fri Apr 22 19:11:39 1994
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Newsgroups: mail.list-managers-digest
Path: sdpage
From: sdpage@andersen.co.uk (Stephen Page)
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
Message-Id: <1994Apr22.141304.1329@andersen.co.uk>
Organization: Andersen Consulting (UK Practice)
References: <199404220810.BAA05156@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM>
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>>I guess my question is, how are you folks handling this recent growth spurt
>>(if you're seeing one)?
I have also had a recent explosion in list size, largely because people do not
read the charter before subscribing (therefore a large percentage of
requests to my still-manual list come in sub/unsub pairs separated by a few
weeks).
I have been wondering whether we should try to encourage some of the large
hub owners, eg aol.com, pan.com, etc to manage their own redistributions.
We would just mail to incoming-listname@aol.com (etc) and the mapping
to hundreds of interested people would be handled automagically at the
gateway.
This would surely be very much easier for those of us who manage lists (eg
the hub owner could manage referential integrity between account and
subscriptions, probably with limited effort); and if the interface were
right then it would be much easier for the end user also. It would also
shift the performance problem from the list maintainers to the recipients.
Stephen Page
Moderator, Music-Research Digest
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 03:36:51 1994
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Date: Fri, 22 Apr 94 21:31:20 -0600
From: Gary Finley
Message-Id: <9404230331.AA00399@loa.psych.ualberta.ca>
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Subject: Majordomo
Reply-To: gfin@psych.ualberta.ca
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Skip my question of yesterday, thanks. Got your ftp addr
from your finger message, and have nabbed Majordomo for
a test drive. Looks like exactly what I was after, thanks.
--------------------------------------------
Gary Finley, Univ. of Alberta Psychology Dept.
gfin@psych.ualberta.ca (NeXTmail welcome!)
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 11:53:51 1994
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From: pmdatropos@aol.com
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 94 07:50:53 EDT
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
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>From sdpage@andersen.co.uk
[ ... ]
>I have been wondering whether we should try to encourage some of the large
>hub owners, eg aol.com, pan.com, etc to manage their own redistributions.
>We would just mail to incoming-listname@aol.com (etc) and the mapping
>to hundreds of interested people would be handled automagically at the
>gateway.
We (America Online) are working on a mechanism to provide mailing lists over
our USENET news reader. Once testing is complete, we will be contacting list
owners to work with them to provide their lists to our users in thi fashion.
We believe that the provision of a single, stable point-of-presence will
prove a benefit to the majority of mailing lists to which our members
currently subscribe via e-mail. It will also have the benefit of decreasing
our e-mail traffic somewhat, which last I heard was approximately 6,000,000
messages a month.
__ David B. O'Donnell (PMDAtropos@aol.com, atropos@aol.net)
\/ System Administrator, America Online, Inc.
Tel.: +1 703/556-3725
List Owner/Editor of Belief-L, GLB-News and SoftRevu
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 16:58:55 1994
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 12:59:14 -0400
From: jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait)
Message-Id: <199404231659.MAA18164@intercon.com>
To: pmdatropos@aol.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
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I must say that I disagree with the plan to feed mailing lists into
newsgroups. For a great many of the mailing lists out there, I think
that if the list maintainters /wanted/ a newsgroup, they would have
started one already. Most of the lists I know /like/ having some
control over the readers of their lists that is not given by a
newsgroup.
Anyone else feel this way?
JB
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 17:03:45 1994
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 13:04:06 -0400
From: jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait)
Message-Id: <199404231704.NAA18227@intercon.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: One of AOLs problems explained...
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>From a social mailing list I'm on...
--------------
From: Dave White
Subject: oops!
yah know folx, sometimes i fuck up in a really spectacular method.
no great surprize there. but at least i admit it.
as some of you know, America-OnLine [AOL] has recently provided their
customers with internet access. these users have been flooding
mailing lists and news groups with new users who do not know much
about how the internet works.
on one of the internet news groups, i recently posted a mild flame /
gentle hint to the aol folx on how to make their post more acceptable,
on a style basis. which included proper indentation of quotes, and an
80 character line length.
i recieved several responses saying that they would really like to,
but that the damned proprietary editor they had to use would not let
them.
i thought about this, then started to laugh. the AOL software is
based on QuantumLink, which in turn was based on PlayNet's software.
including a certain damned proprietary editor I wrote back in 1982.
argh. legacy software that has not been kept up to current standards.
DUH! flaming people for using some brain damaged software, that I
wrote. sigh.
davo
["Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I
believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it." calvin]
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 17:42:03 1994
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 13:41:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
To: Jailbait
Cc: pmdatropos@aol.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199404231659.MAA18164@intercon.com>
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On Sat, 23 Apr 1994, Jailbait wrote:
> I must say that I disagree with the plan to feed mailing lists into
> newsgroups. For a great many of the mailing lists out there, I think
> that if the list maintainters /wanted/ a newsgroup, they would have
> started one already. Most of the lists I know /like/ having some
> control over the readers of their lists that is not given by a
> newsgroup.
>
> Anyone else feel this way?
>
> JB
I certainly do agree with you. I administrate lists that would go bonkers
if the list membership - and communication exchanges- weren't controled in
some way.
I administrate large lists, two in particular, one addressing women's
issues and one that is scientific interest. The largeness of the lists is
working well, and managing to have great, diverse conversations without
sacrificing that cozy feeling. It is still possible to have intimate
conversation going on these large lists. Moving to a newsgroup would blow
this away in a minute.
-Sharon
Owner/women@world.std.com
/rocks-and-fossils@world.std.com
/witi-east@mit.edu
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 17:56:54 1994
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 10:57:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Cook
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
To: Sharon Shea
cc: Jailbait , pmdatropos@aol.com,
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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On Sat, 23 Apr 1994, Sharon Shea wrote:
> I certainly do agree with you. I administrate lists that would go bonkers
> if the list membership - and communication exchanges- weren't controled in
> some way.
>
> I administrate large lists, two in particular, one addressing women's
> issues and one that is scientific interest. The largeness of the lists is
> working well, and managing to have great, diverse conversations without
> sacrificing that cozy feeling. It is still possible to have intimate
> conversation going on these large lists. Moving to a newsgroup would blow
> this away in a minute.
>
> -Sharon
> Owner/women@world.std.com
I would be very interested to hear how large these lists are. I am
curious to know from the actual experience of list owners, just how large
can a list get without losing a cozy feel and functional quality?
Are we talking 200, 2000 people? Is there much degradation of discussion
due to a lack of threading as occurs with newsgroups and so forth? At
what size to people start quitting en mass because of volume,
noise/signal ratio etc.?
James
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 18:05:49 1994
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From: tower@gnu.ai.mit.edu
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 94 14:05:48 edt
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To: jailbait@intercon.com
Cc: pmdatropos@aol.com, list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199404231659.MAA18164@intercon.com> "jailbait@intercon.com"
Reply-To: tower@prep.ai.mit.edu
Organization: Project GNU, Free Software Foundation,
675 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139-3309, USA +1-617-876-3296
Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA 02143, USA +1-617-623-7739
Subject: Superhighway Growth
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 12:59:14 -0400
From: jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait)
Precedence: bulk
I must say that I disagree with the plan to feed mailing lists into
newsgroups. For a great many of the mailing lists out there, I think
that if the list maintainters /wanted/ a newsgroup, they would have
started one already. Most of the lists I know /like/ having some
control over the readers of their lists that is not given by a
newsgroup.
Anyone else feel this way?
JB
I agree. And it's been common practice on all the gateways I know to
at least ask the maintainers of a mailing list if they have any
objections to having their list gated to and from a newsgroup, with an
offer to answer questions about USENET and possible effects of the
gateway, if they wish.
Mailing lists and newsgroups are very different types of forums.
thanx -len
Coordinator, gnUSENET and Gnu Project Mailing Lists
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 18:34:33 1994
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 14:34:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
To: James Cook
Cc: Jailbait , pmdatropos@aol.com,
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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>
> I would be very interested to hear how large these lists are. I am
> curious to know from the actual experience of list owners, just how large
> can a list get without losing a cozy feel and functional quality?
>
> Are we talking 200, 2000 people? Is there much degradation of discussion
> due to a lack of threading as occurs with newsgroups and so forth? At
> what size to people start quitting en mass because of volume,
> noise/signal ratio etc.?
>
> James
>
I had some complaints about too much traffic at around 100, but although
the lists are both at around 500 now, the quality of the conversations
has improved and there is no problem following threads. I think this is
due in part to the fact that these lists have had time to grow at a
gradual rate. Newcomers a one or two a day, they lurk for awhile, get a
good sense of the regulars, and fit in after a bit.
Also, I've done advertising for the lists in places where the people
interested in these topics would hang out. This is both on-line
(advertizing on other lists, gopher services) and in paper publications.
I trek about on foot and contact people about this personally. I think
this sort of effort pays off in list quality.
Also, I do a _lotta_ list management, talking to individuals behind the
list scenes, use appropriate prompt conversations, etc. Lotta work, but
work it does.
-Sharon
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 19:08:59 1994
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 12:10:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Cook
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
To: Sharon Shea
cc: Jailbait , pmdatropos@aol.com,
list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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On Sat, 23 Apr 1994, Sharon Shea wrote:
> I had some complaints about too much traffic at around 100, but although
> the lists are both at around 500 now, the quality of the conversations
> has improved and there is no problem following threads. I think this is
> due in part to the fact that these lists have had time to grow at a
> gradual rate. Newcomers a one or two a day, they lurk for awhile, get a
> good sense of the regulars, and fit in after a bit.
Interesting. I run some lists too. Have had some people quit due to
volume, but most seem to gret their teeth and stay on if they're
interested. I can't help but wonder what the ceiling is on size. You
know, 1000, 3000? I also wonder how folks keep track of the message
threads, and whether that changes as list size grows. Any thoughts?
>
> Also, I've done advertising for the lists in places where the people
> interested in these topics would hang out. This is both on-line
> (advertizing on other lists, gopher services) and in paper publications.
> I trek about on foot and contact people about this personally. I think
> this sort of effort pays off in list quality.
This is very interesting too. I wonder if you're associated with the
woman-started group that spun off of the Well? I read some articles about
a women-only group, and wonder if that's your org.?
It isas a BBS or something. Or perhaps a conferencing facility like the
Well had.
How does one "advertise" in a gopher service? I understand print media
and word of mouth. But, where do you "park" an add on a gopher?
James
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 22:14:30 1994
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 18:13:45 -0400
From: Ken Dykes - Immoderator
Message-Id: <199404232213.SAA01916@Thinkage.On.CA>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: AOL impresses me
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I have written what is likely to be another "form letter" for my list duties.
I'm in a sharing mood today...
>Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 18:08:07 -0400
>From: Ken Dykes - Immoderator
>Message-Id: <199404232208.SAA01798@Thinkage.On.CA>
>To: hdchestnut@aol.com
>Cc: listmaster@aol.com, support@aol.com
>Subject: Re: rejected request to join the Harley Mailing List
A while back you request:
>From:
>To: harley-request
>Date: Sat, 16 Apr 94 20:49:26 EDT
>Subject: request to join
>
>I have found this rather cryptic reference to a harley list that sounds very
>interesting. I ride a '93 FLHS and would like to join this list/group.
>HDChestnut@aol.comh
and i reply with my standard form letter stating your request did not
meet all my extra requirements for those wishing to subscribe via AOL.
and i referred you specificially to listmaster@aol.com for more information.
Today you respond:
>From:
>Date: Sat, 23 Apr 94 09:58:09 EDT
>Subject: Re: rejected request to join the Harley Mailing List
>
>I don't want to start any flame wars, but I am not getting any good reasons
>why my request to join your list was denied. I cannot use any other service
>and AOL is my best $ value here for macintosh. Please elucidate what these
>"extra requirements" are. As a dedicated Harley rider, (50 K miles in <4
>years) I am rather pissed at this nonsense. :-o Please restore my faith that
>most Harley enthusiasts are reasonable, intelligent people by giving this
>matter your attention. Thsanks in advance. Bill Chestnut
You *are* in the middle of a nasty business. This involve Usenet/Internet/AOL
politics and a history far too involved to attempt to explain in simple Email
correspondence.
Anyhow, here is some correspondence from your AOL listmaster:
>From:
>Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 14:18:11 EST
>Subject: Re: Your mailing list
>...
>rights to manage your list as you see fit. To forestall future problems with
>your list, I will have the entry deleted until such time as we receive more
>information from you or an indication that the list is once again publicly
>available.
>...
to which, at approximately 6pm March.26th i sent back the "form" he sent
me for registering what requirements must be met to join the Harley mailing
list.
this form was returned to him approximately two weeks after his above message.
this would've been plenty of time to "delete the entry" -- but i was getting
daily indications he had not actually done so.
I have not heard back from the listmaster and can only presume that he:
a) deleted all references to the Harley list like HE volunteered
(and thus, this conversation wouldn't even be happening)
or b) has incorporated in a publically available location (mailing list
database perhaps) the information i sent him in late march.
I am NOT going to tell you, or aother AOL members, on an *individual*
basis what the extra (quite trivial) requirements are. This information has
been made available to AOL for THEM to provide its multitude of members.
- Ken Dykes, Thinkage Ltd., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [43.47N 80.52W]
harley-request@thinkage.on.ca thinkage!harley-request
From list-managers-owner Sat Apr 23 23:22:24 1994
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From: Ben.Goren@asu.edu
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Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 16:23:19 -0700
To: Sharon Shea , Jailbait
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
Cc: pmdatropos@aol.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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Let me add my vote that a newsgroup would be unwelcome. I'm the founder and
co-owner of SINFONIA, a LISTSERV list for Brothers of Phi Mu Alpha
Sinfonia, the men's professional fraternity in music. I and Dr. Robert
Reynolds, the other owner, work hard to ensure that only Sinfonians have
access to the list, as topics occasionally come up that we'd just as soon
not be heard outside the fraternity. Besides which, I can't recall a
discussion which would be interesting at all to anybody who wasn't a
Brother....
I daresay that if Dr. Reynolds or I ever discovered that somebody was
feeding our list into Usenet, we'd drop that person pronto.
b&
----
Ben.Goren@asu.edu, Arizona State University School of Music
Protect your privacy; oppose Clipper. Write to me for info.
Finger ben@tux.music.asu.edu for PGP 2.3a public key.
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 02:31:41 1994
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
In-Reply-To: <199404231659.MAA18164@intercon.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 94 19:31:57 -0700
From: Michelle Dick
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait) wrote:
> I must say that I disagree with the plan to feed mailing lists into
> newsgroups. For a great many of the mailing lists out there, I think
> that if the list maintainters /wanted/ a newsgroup, they would have
> started one already. Most of the lists I know /like/ having some
> control over the readers of their lists that is not given by a
> newsgroup.
There's nothing wrong with newsgroup option, because it remains just
that, an option. If AOL or other service offers it that way, they
still need an internet email feed to provide the list. List owners
can easily refuse to send the list to such an address-feed.
I allow a few local exploders on my list (which currently has over
1700 addresses, more readers because some folks share and because of
the local exploders). All exploders are on perpetual probation on my
list. If I get postings in blatent and unrepentent violation of the
guidelines of my list from a site with an exploder, I nix the
exploder. Have had no major problems yet (then again, none of the
exploding sites are as large as AOL). Not sure if I would send agree
to send my list to an AOL exploder or not. I like the fact that the
mailing list is somewhat hard to read (and to post to! -- I do not set
the reply-to address to the posting address), it limits membership to
those clearly interested in the topic (in my case, very lowfat
vegetarianism). IMO, the biggest danger of an easy-to-use interface
to email lists is that it makes it too easy to post to it (with 1700+
members, I like to discourage non-substantive posting). I might
consider allowing an AOL exploder if posting to my list still had to
be done via regular internet email, otherwise I'd be very very
hesitant.
BTW, I have about 40 AOL members currently on my list. I find them to
generally be good contributors and good net citizens for the most
part. I do have perpetual problems with misuse of the posting address
for add/drop requests, but I do not find that AOL generates
proportionately more of those problems than other internet sites.
--
Michelle Dick
Owner, FATFREE Vegetarian Mailing List
artemis@rahul.net
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 11:00:13 1994
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From: Nigel Whitfield
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 11:31:06 BST
In-Reply-To: List-Managers-Digest-Owner@greatcircle.com's message 'List Managers Digest V3 #71' of Sat 23 Apr
Reply-To: Nigel Whitfield
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: List Managers Digest V3 #71
Message-ID: <9404241131.aa01439@fags.stonewall.demon.co.uk>
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> From: Ben.Goren@asu.edu
> Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
>
> A suggestion some of you might wish to consider: pick a dozen or so
> regulars you've got now, people whom you trust, and make them all list
> editors . (With Eric Thomas' LISTSERV, mail sent to the list goes to
> editors, if specified, and only an editor or an owner can actually post. I
> suspect other programs have similar facilities.) Then, if somebody wants to
> post, it first gets filtered through the regulars. If any one of them
> thinks it's worth passing on to the list, it goes through. If the editors
> wish, they can come to some sort of consensus to add new people to their
> ranks.
At the moment, the list I run (uk-motss) supports a little used
'Distribution:' header. At the moment it's used for the women's
sub-list and for priority messages, which override the digest system.
I suppose an extension of the suggestion above would be to use
Keywords or Distribution headers, and have the list editors classify
each incoming message, so that it's only sent to people who have
expressed an interest in those subjects. By allowing messages with
valid Keywords headers through automatically, you could retain some of
the immediacy; the delays on messsages that weren't classified by the
sender should encourage them to get into the habit.
Nigel.
--
[Nigel Whitfield nigel@stonewall.demon.co.uk]
[For details on the uk-motss mailing list mail uk-motss-request@pyra.co.uk]
[***** All demon.co.uk sites are independently run internet hosts *****]
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 11:00:23 1994
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From: Nigel Whitfield
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 11:37:44 BST
In-Reply-To: List-Managers-Digest-Owner@greatcircle.com's message 'List Managers Digest V3 #71' of Sat 23 Apr
Reply-To: Nigel Whitfield
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To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
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> From: sdpage@andersen.co.uk (Stephen Page)
> Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 14:13:04 GMT
> Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
>
> I have been wondering whether we should try to encourage some of the large
> hub owners, eg aol.com, pan.com, etc to manage their own redistributions.
> We would just mail to incoming-listname@aol.com (etc) and the mapping
> to hundreds of interested people would be handled automagically at the
> gateway.
That works fine in some circumstances, but there are lists (again,
uk-motss is one such) where you might want to have tighter control
over redistribution and membership. For instance, everyone who joins
uk-motss will receive both welcome message and posting guidelines. The
best way to make sure that happens is with a central address.
Our current solution is to run extra copies of the list software at
two sites (largely to cope with anomalies in European network
topology). These will only accept incoming messages from the main list
processor, and updating is handled automatically by mailing a pgp
encoded subscriber list to another script on the remote host. So, in
effect, we have the benefit of remote expansions, but with no loss of
central control, and nothing needed on the remote system other than
two aliases and a touch of disk space.
To me, that's a much more reasonable solution for a private list than
simply giving over control of a section to a third party.
Nigel.
--
[Nigel Whitfield nigel@stonewall.demon.co.uk]
[For details on the uk-motss mailing list mail uk-motss-request@pyra.co.uk]
[***** All demon.co.uk sites are independently run internet hosts *****]
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 11:00:18 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 13:50:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: Re: Superhighway Growth
To: James Cook
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To:
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>
> Interesting. I run some lists too. Have had some people quit due to
> volume, but most seem to gret their teeth and stay on if they're
> interested. I can't help but wonder what the ceiling is on size. You
> know, 1000, 3000? I also wonder how folks keep track of the message
> threads, and whether that changes as list size grows. Any thoughts?
I haven't had mine go over 500 at any point yet. I think a lot has to do
with the list purpose. Some can tolerate larger membership if they are
primarily 'informational.' But I have one that is informational and also
opinion/discussion. A membership of 3000 wouldn't hack it for that one.
> This is very interesting too. I wonder if you're associated with the
> woman-started group that spun off of the Well? I read some articles about
> a women-only group, and wonder if that's your org.?
'Women' is woman-centered, not women-only. This one takes a lot of care
and tending to keep the appropriate atmosphere with such a large and
diverse membership. This one is fantastic because of the amount of
learning that has been gained in the exchanges. It's not associated with
anything - this one provides support, service recommendations, info for
good it does, no association necessary.
> How does one "advertise" in a gopher service? I understand print media
> and word of mouth. But, where do you "park" an add on a gopher?
>
Actually I haven't been doing the gopher listing. Someone who is a list
member, or is at least familiar with the list, has put the address on
their women's interests gopher site. Maybe advertising isn't the right
word here, but it's just another way that the word gets spread when info
on the list gets posted in some reference source. I also had one person
tell me they found the list through some listing in a library, another
said it was included in a print-out of 'women's resources' at a
conference.
-Sharon
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 20:11:49 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 14:53:36 -0400
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: snyderra@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu (Bob Snyder)
Subject: Re: AOL impresses me
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At 6:13 PM 4/23/94 -0400, Ken Dykes - Immoderator wrote:
>and i reply with my standard form letter stating your request did not
>meet all my extra requirements for those wishing to subscribe via AOL.
>and i referred you specificially to listmaster@aol.com for more information.
Why exactly do you have "extra requirements" from those subscribing from
AOL? OK, you seemed to be pissed at AOL management. That's no reason to
take it out on the users of the system. I don't see a major difference
between aol.com, drexel.edu, or foo.org.
It seems to me that it takes about the same amount of effort to mail the
person a "Go the hell away and talk to listmaster" as it does to send a
"Here are the extra requirements" form message.
Bob
--
Bob Snyder N2KGO MIME, RIPEM mail accepted
snyderra@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu finger for RIPEM public key
When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 21:11:05 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 17:11:00 -0400
From: Ken Dykes
Message-Id: <199404242111.RAA05151@Thinkage.On.CA>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: AOL impresses me
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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>Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 14:53:36 -0400
>From: snyderra@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu (Bob Snyder)
>Subject: Re: AOL impresses me
>
>>and i reply with my standard form letter stating your request did not
>>meet all my extra requirements for those wishing to subscribe via AOL.
>Why exactly do you have "extra requirements" from those subscribing from
>AOL? OK, you seemed to be pissed at AOL management. That's no reason to
they are required to quote a cute phrase (to show they actually have READ
the instructions)
and they are required to include with their request to join a copy of
the AOL database entry for my list (because i do not expect AOL management
to be to keep list managers truly in touch with what the entry says. there
seems to be a tendency to "describe the entry" rather than showing the
verbatim entry)
other requirements, recently included with Stephanies list of lists too, but
the original AOL entry did not have include:
+ sending a real human name,
+ sending a contact evening (GMT-5) phone number
i havent yet phoned anyone, but the requirement seems to scare off the
feeble hearted -- which is very fine with me.
>take it out on the users of the system. I don't see a major difference
>between aol.com, drexel.edu, or foo.org.
why should the E-world be sweeter than the real world.
especially since the real world seems damned intent upon thrusting itself
upon us.
clueless freshmen tend to join, and quit a little while later when they
realize the list isnt what they expected. perhaps the joins & quits are
phrased strangely, but since i do manual admin processing anyway, this is
no problem.
join & quit operations are a "cheap operation" and dont bother me (i really
dont know why others have complained about the high frequency of join/quits)
however, AOL users have introduced a new, AND consistent, wrinkle.
they ask direct questions of harley-request, requiring direct time-comsumed
answers in return. usually the questions have nothing to do with what
the list is for.
("Send me everything you have on H-D 1997 model Foo"
"I just did this to my bike, is it a good idea")
or just general bbs style chit-chat to what they perceive no differently
than the friendly local sysop.
i dont have time for chit-chat, yet i don't really have the gumption to
just ignore their mail completely.
also, when i'm on business trips, a non-harley coworker may be doing
the joins/quits. how are supposed to handle these turkeys?
we are talking about mail to -request, and they are NOT EVEN MEMBERS YET.
.edu/.com newbies just have not done this to me in the several years before.
>It seems to me that it takes about the same amount of effort to mail the
>person a "Go the hell away and talk to listmaster" as it does to send a
>"Here are the extra requirements" form message.
a little effort spent now will save a hell of a lot of effort later.
imho.
it's called "investment".
i *do* have AOL members on my list, in fact some of the best contributers.
however, i *will* use whatever force necessary to keep my overall admin-grief
to a minimum -- even if it means shutting out a whole class of users.
(after all, the brave new 3000 user list of the future isnt going to miss
another 500-1000 of them is it???)
in truth my list is about 530 members.
my REAL problem with AOL is not the users, but the managements inability
to communicate effectively with list managers.
they seem quick to talk when "fire fighting", but never produce real and
useful information voluntarily.
when i sent my "form/update" to them in late march, i never received
an ACK, or a statement that there were any problems incorporating it.
if they didn't receive my late march mail, why do i still get requests to
join when they supposedly removed Harleys from their database -- as THEY
volunteered to do??
and, if they didnt receive the form/info from me, why have they not had
the curiosity to ask me something when their own users started to ask
listmaster direct questions about the Harley list?
perhaps there are innocent answers to all this, but they sure arent
obvious or forthcoming.
communication seems to only be "extracted" from AOL.
----my current form letter follows---
From: harley-request
Subject: rejected request to join the Harley Mailing List
To: AOL-subscriber
Your request to receive the Harley Mailing List did not fulfill all my
extra requirements for those receiving mail at America OnLine.
Please ask your local LISTMASTER (listmaster@aol.com) to review with you
what is required to join the Harley Mailing List.
These requirements were sent to the listmaster on Saturday March 26th at 6pm.
Since they have not mentioned to me having any problem incorporating the
requirments into the AOL mailing list database I can only presume they
have done so.
If you are able to receive Email at any other electronic address such as
a college, corporation or other service-provider like Genie, Portal, Delphi,
MCImail, Panix, Compuserve or Prodigy I will be glad to provide you with
service at any of those sites; without the above mentioned requirements.
- Ken Dykes, Thinkage Ltd., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [43.47N 80.52W]
harley-request@thinkage.on.ca thinkage!harley-request
kgdykes@thinkage.on.ca postmaster@thinkage.com
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 23:04:54 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 16:04:46 -0700
From: Chuq Von Rospach
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To: kgdykes@Thinkage.On.CA, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: AOL impresses me
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funny. I've yet to have a problem with AOL or its users. Of course, I'm
not running off picking fights with them, either.
I wonder if list managers get the kind of activity they look for?
chuq
(rhetorical question: are we running lists to provide a service? or because it's
good for the ego to be a list manager?)
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 23:29:38 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 19:25:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: list membership security
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
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Majordomo will limit access to members addresses to members only, however -
is there a way to hide addresses from list members as well?
Concern I'm hearing about is that someone could get signed on, do 'who'
and then split with the info.
Know of any other list servers that will do this? I'm getting this
questions from an academic institution.
Thanks.
-Sharon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sharon Shea
P.O. Box 79226 Email: sshea@world.std.com
Waverley, MA 02179 or sshea@mit.edu
Phone: 508-429-9962
Fax: 617-489-3377
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 23:32:25 1994
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id TAA10046 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sun, 24 Apr 1994 19:32:24 -0400
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 19:32:24 -0400
From: Ken Dykes
Message-Id: <199404242332.TAA10046@Thinkage.On.CA>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: selfish motivations, was: Re: AOL impresses me
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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>Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 16:04:46 -0700
>From: Chuq Von Rospach
>Subject: Re: AOL impresses me
>I wonder if list managers get the kind of activity they look for?
i suspect those who run "wide open, no rules" lists have few problems.
those who run tighter ships will bump into more things.
since i don't edit/moderate the actual messages (automated digest), i demand
a certain level of reading-for-content and general neural activity from
list members upfront.
(i do in a blue moon moderate "after the fact" and terminate a thread by fiat.)
>(rhetorical question: are we running lists to provide a service? or because
>it's good for the ego to be a list manager?)
c) forced into it because of the inadequacies of netnews
i started the list because *i* wasn't being served by netnews at the time
(and still not particularly served by the tooth-and-nailed voted
rec.motorcycles.harley)
not ego in the sense that "look ma! i have my own empire", but rather the
selfish "i want a service, i guess i have to create that service"
which, btw, is often what many usenet flamers tell folks to go and do.
they ego-payback amortized over hours spent on servicing the list, the
list archives, keyword database, and and Thinkage mail service impact is
low enough to consider declaring ego insolvency.
the information-payback for making my machinery and riding pleasure
better is what keeps me going.
oh, you said rhetorical... :-)
- Ken Dykes, Thinkage Ltd., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada [43.47N 80.52W]
kgdykes@thinkage.on.ca postmaster@thinkage.com
harley-request@thinkage.on.ca thinkage!kgdykes
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 23:51:48 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 16:51:37 -0700
From: Chuq Von Rospach
Message-Id: <9404242351.AA17728@apple.com>
To: kgdykes@Thinkage.On.CA, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: selfish motivations, was: Re: AOL impresses me
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>i suspect those who run "wide open, no rules" lists have few problems.
>those who run tighter ships will bump into more things.
My lists, by the way, are pretty tight, and actively coerced. I kicked
someone off of one Friday, in fact (never, ever say "bite me" to a List
Mom), although that's the first time in a LONG time that's happened.
>since i don't edit/moderate the actual messages (automated digest),
Neither do I. I simply work in the backgroudn 9as much as possible) getting
unwelcome threads to go private or die out. (which occasionally gets someone
to say "bite me", but he didn't get a vote). There's a specific charter and
the like, fairly specific, and closely policed.
>c) forced into it because of the inadequacies of netnews
Good point, but that's a side reason. What about those other thousands in
teh same position that didn't start it up? It might be a catalyst, but not a
motivator.
>oh, you said rhetorical... :-)
But it's fun to think about. Especially by List Mom's that seem to have
continuing problems with the list. Sometimes, if you look deep enough, you
find the conflict isn't coming from external sources.
And sometimes it is.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 00:06:59 1994
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From: rnovak@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Robert Novak)
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Subject: Re: selfish motivations, was: Re: AOL impresses me
To: kgdykes@Thinkage.On.CA (Ken Dykes)
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 18:03:12 -0600 (MDT)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199404242332.TAA10046@Thinkage.On.CA> from "Ken Dykes" at Apr 24, 94 07:32:24 pm
Reply-To: rnovak@nyx.cs.du.edu
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"Ken Dykes" says something like:
>
> >From: Chuq Von Rospach
>
> >I wonder if list managers get the kind of activity they look for?
>
> i suspect those who run "wide open, no rules" lists have few problems.
> those who run tighter ships will bump into more things.
If the list manager just sits around off the list and lets it run,
clockmaker style, s/he (or s/h/it for the PC-inclined) will have no
direct problems. However, if you want to keep the list worth reading, and
the list membership generally doesn't follow netiquette to keep the list
worth reading, problems will show up.
> since i don't edit/moderate the actual messages (automated digest), i demand
> a certain level of reading-for-content and general neural activity from
> list members upfront.
> (i do in a blue moon moderate "after the fact" and terminate a thread by fiat.)
I find this necessary very rarely, but unfortunately people tend to lash
out at perceived "censorship" with phrases that translate to "who gives
you the right to tell me I have to follow list guidelines and netiquette?
I have the right to flame anybody and everybody on your 100+ member list
anytime I want using the list without any accountability." Yes, I have
one of those smaller large lists... hoping to never break 500 :-)
> >(rhetorical question: are we running lists to provide a service? or because
> >it's good for the ego to be a list manager?)
>
> c) forced into it because of the inadequacies of netnews
d) bits of each. :-) At least one of my lists, maybe two, are there to
provide a semi-sheltered resource for discussions that aren't too popular
on the more widely-defined newsgroups. Others were taken over to provide
a service when the original managers became unable to actively manage or
support them.
> not ego in the sense that "look ma! i have my own empire", but rather the
> selfish "i want a service, i guess i have to create that service"
I have several lists like this. They're usually low traffic, low time
requirements to manage, but the people who participate usually appreciate
them.
> they ego-payback amortized over hours spent on servicing the list, the
> list archives, keyword database, and and Thinkage mail service impact is
> low enough to consider declaring ego insolvency.
Is there a Chapter 11 for ego bankruptcy? :-)
On the subject of AOL and special requirements, I agree with the poster
who suggested just passing along the extra requirements and letting them
fulfill the requirements via your document rather than via the AOL online
database. I don't claim to know what's best for you, and if this system
works for you go along with it, but I hate to hold users accountable for
administrative shortcomings. If you tell them "read this and follow the
instructions to get added" and they read it and follow the instructions,
they've done their share.
I've had reasonably parallel experiences with AOL and non-AOL users as
far as good users, bad users, list abuse, appropriate list use, etc...
I think that if AOL users had been added at a much slower rate, we
wouldn't have noticed. However, a lot got dumped onto the net at once, so
the influx of clueless newbies happened to be in a short period of time.
Same with the influx of clueful contributors to the net.culture.
AOL remains one of the friendlier net access points for people who don't
have access to a shell account, and some people around the world lose
their company or school accounts every year and look for some way to
access the net from B.F. Egypt ... Friendly in terms of interface, cost,
and reachability. Let's remember that not every AOLer is a clueless
infidel who uses 0 instead of O in every word... some might be pretty
significant computer users and net participants who just had to find
another on-ramp.
Enough babbling... gotta go get caffeine. :-)
Robert
--
Robert Novak (rnovak@nyx.cs.du.edu) . Manager: tiffany, perfect-beat, slade,
"You get elaborate with your lies, . tiger, galaxy, gpdg, galaxy variants
Computer dreams slip through your . GM: galaxy, g/2, galactica, blind
eyes / Baby you like to be the king of paradise / So sweet and ruthless." -TD
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 00:07:46 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 20:02:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Casti
Subject: Re: list membership security
To: Sharon Shea
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To:
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Hi Sharon,
> Majordomo will limit access to members addresses to members only, however -
> is there a way to hide addresses from list members as well?
> Concern I'm hearing about is that someone could get signed on, do 'who'
> and then split with the info.
Yes, I run several lists where members feel the need to remain private
and had the same concerns about majordomo. The easiest solution I've
found is simply patch the majordomo perl file so "who" doesn't work any
more. Change the keyword "who" to "green" or "horse" or some other
random word. Then update the help file to indicate that 'who' has been
disabled on your list server.
You and your list managers still have the functionality of a who command,
but the users at large don't -- and they probably didn't need it anyway.
David.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 00:13:39 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 20:06:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Casti
Subject: Re: AOL impresses me
To: Chuq Von Rospach
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <9404242304.AA14233@apple.com>
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On Sun, 24 Apr 1994, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:
> funny. I've yet to have a problem with AOL or its users. Of course, I'm
> not running off picking fights with them, either.
That's OK. The law of averages will catch up with you too.
> I wonder if list managers get the kind of activity they look for?
Possible, but based on the sheer numbers of list managers who have trouble
with AOL users it would seem that there is something of substance.
> (rhetorical question: are we running lists to provide a service? or because
> it's good for the ego to be a list manager?)
Interesting question... I'm sure it varies from manager to manager, and
in almost all cases its some mixture of both.
David.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 00:17:49 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 20:13:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sharon Shea
Subject: Re: list membership security
To: David Casti
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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>
> Yes, I run several lists where members feel the need to remain private
> and had the same concerns about majordomo. The easiest solution I've
> found is simply patch the majordomo perl file so "who" doesn't work any
> more. Change the keyword "who" to "green" or "horse" or some other
> random word. Then update the help file to indicate that 'who' has been
> disabled on your list server.
>
> You and your list managers still have the functionality of a who command,
> but the users at large don't -- and they probably didn't need it anyway.
>
> David.
I take it that this will disable 'who' universally for all the lists on
that server. Is there a way to do it for some of the lists, but not all
of the lists?
-Sharon
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 00:52:17 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 17:53:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Cook
Subject: Re: list membership security
To: David Casti
cc: Sharon Shea , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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On Sun, 24 Apr 1994, David Casti wrote:
> Hi Sharon,
>
> > Majordomo will limit access to members addresses to members only, however -
> > is there a way to hide addresses from list members as well?
> > Concern I'm hearing about is that someone could get signed on, do 'who'
> > and then split with the info.
>
> Yes, I run several lists where members feel the need to remain private
> and had the same concerns about majordomo. The easiest solution I've
> found is simply patch the majordomo perl file so "who" doesn't work any
> more. Change the keyword "who" to "green" or "horse" or some other
> random word. Then update the help file to indicate that 'who' has been
> disabled on your list server.
>
> You and your list managers still have the functionality of a who command,
> but the users at large don't -- and they probably didn't need it anyway.
>
I have this need too, and think this suggestion sounds brilliant and
simple. Trick is I'm not sure ho to do it in mechanical terms. Any chance
of spelling it out for a simple mind?
Does the modification depend upon cooperation of a sysadmin? I've not
received cooperation on this matter from ours. Is it doable from a dial
up account?
Thanks to all for this particular, important gem......
James
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 01:09:49 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 20:58:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Casti
Reply-To: David Casti
Subject: Re: list membership security
To: James Cook
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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Hi James,
On Sun, 24 Apr 1994, James Cook wrote:
> I have this need too, and think this suggestion sounds brilliant and
> simple.
Wow, that's a pretty high compliment. Thanks. I have yet to hear an
argument for allowing users to 'who' a mailing list. Sysadmins and list
admins, yes; users, no.
> Trick is I'm not sure ho to do it in mechanical terms. Any chance
> of spelling it out for a simple mind?
I believe I'm using majordomo version 1.51, and in the "majordomo" perl
executable -- NOT majordomo.pl -- wander on down to line 125:
line 125: elsif ($cmd eq "who") { &do_who(@parts); }
Just change the value of "who" to anything you want. No other steps are
required to effect this change.
If you're a decent human being, you should also update "sub do_help"
(begins on line 632) to reflect that 'who' is not available.
> Does the modification depend upon cooperation of a sysadmin?
It requires write access to the majordomo executable. This may or may
not be your sysadmin.
> I've not received cooperation on this matter from ours.
Have you determined why? I've met very few sysadmins who are gratuitously
obstinate. Most of the time they are trying to save work, but you can't
get much simpler than this solution.
David.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 01:19:47 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 18:21:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: James Cook
Subject: Re: list membership security
To: David Casti
cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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On Sun, 24 Apr 1994, David Casti wrote:
> > Does the modification depend upon cooperation of a sysadmin?
>
> It requires write access to the majordomo executable. This may or may
> not be your sysadmin.
>
Ah ......I may out of luck. Also, As Sharon points out, this may disable
the who command for every list manager at a site, correct? Some list
managers w/ Majordomo may desire to leave "who" activated.
> > I've not received cooperation on this matter from ours.
>
> Have you determined why? I've met very few sysadmins who are gratuitously
> obstinate. Most of the time they are trying to save work, but you can't
> get much simpler than this solution.
>
I wish I new. No response to my five requests over several months. They
just indicate that they're busy. I've explained that there are security,
privacy, and proprietary reasons of substance, but they just don't get it
handled.
On another note, I've heard that even disabling "who" will not prevent
certain other methods of even non list members from obtaining alist of
users. Something about sendmail manipulation......
James
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 01:28:26 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 18:14:45 PDT
From: ric@odetics.com (Ric Belding)
Message-Id: <9404250114.AA15751@mordred.odetics.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: AOL
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I also have yet to have any problems with users on AOL.
What's all the hub-bub?
Ric
_____________________________ _____
| \ \ R \__ _____
| Ric Belding \___________\ \/_______\___\_____________
| ric@odetics.com / ( /_/ ..................... `-.
|_____________________________/ `-----------,----,--------------'
_/____/
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 03:16:41 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 19:32:46 -0700
From: willis@scs.unr.edu (Glee Willis)
Message-Id: <9404250232.AA12934@shadow.scs.unr.edu>
To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: aausers' need for majordomo "who" command
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On Sun, 24 Apr 1994 David Casti said:
> You and your list managers still have the functionality of a who command,
> but the users at large don't -- and they probably didn't need it anyway.
What about when those of us Joe Users (who want to unsubscribe from a
majordomo list) need to check to see what our FQDN was when we subscribed
to it? (Our FQDNs here change about every six months but the nameservers
are set to retain our old FQDNs for long afterwards.) If you expect
list subscribers to act responsibly, you need to equip them with the
tools to do so. The 'who' command is just such a tool.
Glee
From list-managers-owner Sun Apr 24 20:30:13 1994
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From: tower@gnu.ai.mit.edu
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 23:19:31 edt
Message-Id: <9404250319.AA23401@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
To: pmdatropos@aol.com
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <9404230750.tn74359@aol.com> "pmdatropos@aol.com"
Reply-To: tower@prep.ai.mit.edu
Organization: Project GNU, Free Software Foundation,
675 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139-3309, USA +1-617-876-3296
Home: 36 Porter Street, Somerville, MA 02143, USA +1-617-623-7739
Subject: Superhighway Growth
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From: pmdatropos@aol.com
X-Mailer: America Online Mailer
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 94 07:50:53 EDT
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>From sdpage@andersen.co.uk
We (America Online) are working on a mechanism to provide mailing lists over
our USENET news reader. Once testing is complete, we will be contacting list
owners to work with them to provide their lists to our users in thi fashion.
We believe that the provision of a single, stable point-of-presence will
prove a benefit to the majority of mailing lists to which our members
currently subscribe via e-mail. It will also have the benefit of decreasing
our e-mail traffic somewhat, which last I heard was approximately 6,000,000
messages a month.
Automatically doing this for any off-site mailing list is not
appropriate. You could ruin many lists overnight, by swamping them
with a lot of newcomers and idly curious.
The previous suggestion of having a single re-distribution address at
AOL would reduce the TCP/IP overhead. Who is on this re-distribution
address should be controlled by the list's owner, NOT by AOL, unless
there is prior agreement otherwise.
It's been common practice on all the gateways I know, to at least ask
the maintainers of a mailing list if they have any objections to
having their list gated to and from a newsgroup (be it local or net
wide), with an offer to answer questions about USENET and possible
effects of the gateway, number of accounts at the site or across
USENET, etc. And only establish the gateway after the list owner
agrees. Many list owners have discussed the matter with their lists.
Mailing lists and newsgroups are very different types of forums. The
Internet needs both.
please, Please, PLEASE do NOT do what you suggest, except on a
case-by-case basis with the agreement of the list owner and his list.
thanx -len
Coordinator, gnUSENET and Gnu Project Mailing Lists
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 03:31:11 1994
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.COM
Subject: Re: AOL
From: Gess Shankar
Reply-To: gess@knex.mind.org (Gess Shankar)
Message-ID:
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 22:48:29 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9404250114.AA15751@mordred.odetics.com>
Organization: |<><>| Knowledge Exchange, GA, USA |<><>|
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ric@odetics.com (Ric Belding) writes:
> I also have yet to have any problems with users on AOL.
>
> What's all the hub-bub?
>
The major problem with AOL users in some of my lists appears to be their
inability to figure out the correct address to send commands and list
mail. Any amount of help text sent with subscription acknowlegement and
periodic mailings has not fixed this problem.
Even though distributed mail has the Reply-To: set to the list address,
the mailer they use seems to want to send the reply mail to the From_ or
Sender: address. They also send the commands to the same address which
is the mailer-daemon and not the server alias. This continues to happen
despite frequent administrivia postings to the list, explaining the
headers and the various addresses therein. When they find out the List
addresses, guess where they send the sub/unsub commands to..?
When combined with the fact that AOLers seem to want to get on and off
lists for the heck of it, this becomes a pain to administer. (Especially
nasty are those who subscribe and then send mail to list-owner, list
etc. screaming ... "Stop sending this garbage, I am not interested")
Other than that, no problem with AOL users.
GeSS
--
Gess Shankar |<><>|Internet: gess@knex.mind.ORG |<><>|
Knowledge Exchange|<><>|{rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!uumind!knex!gess |<><>|
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 04:08:41 1994
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To: James Cook
cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: list membership security
In-reply-to: A message of "Sun, 24 Apr 1994 18:21:16 PDT."
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Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 00:08:23 -0400
From: Paul Graham
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the issue of modifying major-domo is more appropriate for the majordomo
list. however the privacy aspects of sendmail are likely a list-managers
concern so:
if you're using sendmail you need, for security reasons, to be running
the current version (8.6.9 as of today) which supports limits on the
vrfy and expn commands. of course sendmail will not normally track
down a majordomo list.
regarding your ``non-responsive'' system administrators:
if we can assume that you're a netcom customer and they are ``selling''
the ability to run mailing lists then you must depend upon them to make
changes to system facilities like majordomo and sendmail. if you find
this awkward you can use something like procmail which can run entirely
in your account or you can switch to a more responsive vendor (if any
exist).
-------- You write:
I wish I new. No response to my five requests over several months. They
just indicate that they're busy. I've explained that there are security,
privacy, and proprietary reasons of substance, but they just don't get it
handled.
On another note, I've heard that even disabling "who" will not prevent
certain other methods of even non list members from obtaining alist of
users. Something about sendmail manipulation......
-------------------
--
paul
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 04:12:15 1994
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Date: Sun, 24 Apr 94 22:59:20 -0400
From: todd%toolz.UUCP@mathcs.emory.edu (Todd Merriman)
Message-Id: <9404250259.AA05973@toolz>
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: list membership security
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I have only been asked for my list by those who wish to
use it for commercial gain. I, therefore, give the list
to no-one.
| Todd Merriman - Software Toolz, Inc. +1 404 889 8264 / Maintainer of the
| 8030 Pooles Mill Dr., Ball Ground, GA 30107 / Software Entrepreneur's
| todd@toolz.atl.ga.us / Mailing List
In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 05:25:24 1994
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Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 01:25:09 -0400
From: jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait)
Message-Id: <199404250525.BAA06926@intercon.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Here's a question for you all...
Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM
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So.
We've all gotten really sick and tired of misdirected sub and unsub
requests.
The question is, do all of you who run automated list maintainence SW
have the -request set correctly so that, at the VERY least,
the user who uses that address gets a note saying that this is an
automated system and to do the following...?
I really hope so...
JB
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 06:20:42 1994
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To: jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait)
cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Here's a question for you all...
In-reply-to: Your message of Mon, 25 Apr 1994 01:25:09 -0400
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 23:20:33 -0700
From: Brent Chapman
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jailbait@intercon.com (Jailbait) writes:
# So.
# We've all gotten really sick and tired of misdirected sub and unsub
# requests.
# The question is, do all of you who run automated list maintainence SW
# have the -request set correctly so that, at the VERY least,
# the user who uses that address gets a note saying that this is an
# automated system and to do the following...?
# I really hope so...
# JB
I strongly agree with this sentiment (that you should support the
"-request" convention, regardless of what else you do). This is a key
part of the standard Majordomo setup. If folks follow the examples
given for setting up lists, they'll have a "-request" address for each
list that sends back instructions on how to use Majordomo with
specific examples customized for the list in question.
-Brent
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | Call or email for info about
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | upcoming Internet Security
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | Firewalls Tutorial dates
From list-managers-owner Mon Apr 25 07:40:38 1994
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